Decumbent development: Urban sprawl in the Guwahati Metropolitan Area,India

Urban sprawl has become a global phenomenon as an outcome of growing population and rapid urbanization. Previous studies have addressed the rising incidence of uncontrollable urban development, particularly in peri-urban areas of cities, leading to chronic urban sprawl. The city of Guwahati, a million city in north east India, has expanded significantly in recent years. In this article, the links between population and growth of built-up areas were examined using geo-spatial techniques and remotely sensed datasets. The results indicate that the sprawl has accentuated in recent years. The intensity of land use remained uneven due to marked variations in the distribution of built-up areas, plausibly an outcome of unplanned urban growth. If current trends are anything to go by, future urban sprawl could pose serious threats to the vulnerable eco-sensitive and peri-urban areas of Guwahati. Secondary cities have unfortunately received scant attention in urban policy research, and Guwahati, epitomizes urban woes in a developing country.     

A spatial analytic approach for classifying greenspace and comparing greenspace social equity

Urban planners frequently adhere to ‘park minimum standards’ to ensure that public health and environmental benefits associated with greenspace are socially equitable. These standards denote the extent and placement of greenspaces, but rarely consider their form and function. Arguably, an inclusive evaluation of greenspace social equity requires the comparison of greenspace types. To address if greenspace types are socially equitable, I develop a novel spatial analytic approach that classifies 4265 greenspaces according to twelve functional, physical characteristics. I then compare the social equity of these greenspace types using multiple operationalizations of social equity (provision, accessibility, and population pressure) throughout 4524 neighborhoods in a capital city in Australia. I find that greenspace social equity varies for each of these types. For example, results reveal that affluent households have an abundance of amenity rich greenspaces and few amenity poor ones. Further, by comparing across multiple social equity operationalizations, I find that affluent households may have a deficit of the amenity poor greenspace type, but live closer to this type. These findings confirm that employing a greenspace typology and multiple social equity operationalizations can deepen our understanding of the association between social equity and greenspace provision. This spatial analytic approach is both adaptable for examining other urban land use types, and portable to other urban contexts, and can aid urban planners, researchers, and policy makers to understand how to improve the social equity of publicly beneficial greenspace types.     

THE EMERGENCE OF AFFLUENCE IN BEIJING: RESIDENTIAL SOCIAL STRATIFICATION IN CHINA'S CAPITAL CITY

Since 1987, the Chinese government has begun to liberalize its approach to land markets, allowing for the development of commercial residential housing and sparking greater distinctions in housing quality. At the same time, there have been growing income differentials among Beijing's residents. This paper discusses how Beijing's new urban affluent have begun to take advantage of greater housing choices. It reports on a survey conducted in 1997 that uncovers the occupational characteristics, consumption patterns, housing characteristics, and residential locations of affluent residents. The results indicate that Beijing's new urban affluent are beginning to share some of the consumption features of middle-class Westerners. At the same time, social segregation is still nascent in Beijing. There is now only a sprinkling of affluent neighborhoods in the city, and a slight majority of wealthier respondents continue to live in public housing. Moreover, few are able to afford detached single-family housing or a private automobile. The continuation of current trends could both deepen and broaden social segregation in Beijing, as class divisions come to be manifested in separate neighborhoods. [Key words: socialist cities, affluence, Beijing, housing, social stratification.]     

‘Locationally disadvantaged’: planning governmentalities and peri-urban agricultural futures

ABSTRACT

Peri-urban areas are the interface between urban and rural regions, with these regions traditionally acting as foodbowls for adjacent urban areas. This peri-urban agriculture provides a diverse suite of benefits to urban areas. Increasingly, however, peri-urban areas are being converted to residential uses, driven in part by higher land values secured for land converted for residential development. In Sydney, planning and development has tended to treat peri-urban areas as ‘suburbs in waiting’. Using a Foucauldian governmentality approach, this paper investigates the prevailing rationalities in metropolitan-level strategic planning documents—in particular A Plan for Growing Sydney and the Draft South West District Plan—and how these rationalities relate to peri-urban agriculture. Our analysis shows that the three overarching rationalities—the global city, the compact city and the sustainability agenda—frame the urbanisation of peri-urban agricultural lands as necessary and inevitable, and only integrate agriculture as part of the future of the city of Sydney when it can be rationalised within the ‘global city’ narrative. As a result, peri-urban areas are not considered to have unique planning needs, but are imagined as latent spaces that will enable Sydney to meet its housing and job targets through their future development.     

Vegetation change and fragmentation in the mega city of Delhi: Mapping 25 years of change

Delhi, the worlds' second most populous city, has experienced rapid, planned and unplanned expansion at the cost of its green cover in recent decades. In this study, we use satellite images from 1986, 1999 and 2010 to map changes in urban and green cover, assess the fragmentation of green spaces, and identify the drivers of change. We find that urban patterns of development have shaped the distribution and fragmentation of green spaces, with the city center containing more green spaces with less fragmentation compared to intermediate areas and the peri-urban periphery. Yet, the city core has also experienced the greatest degree of vegetation clearing and fragmentation over time due to infrastructural expansion, while the peri-urban periphery has shown an increase in vegetation and a decrease in fragmentation due to recent compensatory plantation in these peripheral areas. Forests, archaeological sites, and military and academic campuses have played a major role in protecting green cover and limiting fragmentation in the core and intermediate areas of the city. This research helps in advancing our understanding of the pattern–process relationship between urbanization and land cover change/fragmentation in India's largest city.     

从田园城市到精明增长：西方新城市主义思潮演化及批判

随着工业时代的洗礼和二战后城市人口的迅速增长,城市蔓延、中心城市衰退和大城市病已经成为了制约西方国家城市可持续发展的三大毒瘤,新城市主义理念孕育而生。从田园城市到精明增长,新城市主义思潮经历了长时间的酝酿和演化,其倡导的多样化、紧凑型、公交导向的交通和社会融合的城市形态普遍受到多数人的支持,但在实践当中,新城市主义者又常常因违背其宣扬的社会公正、对抗蔓延、保护生态和文化多样性等价值理念而备受批评。     

基于改进遗传算法投影寻踪的大城市郊区耕地安全综合评价

针对耕地安全高维评价体系指标权重难以赋值、客观性差的问题,构建了实码加速的遗传算法投影寻踪（RAGA-PP）模型,对快速城市化的大城市郊区耕地安全进行综合评价。以广州城市发展的南拓与北优两个郊区——番禺区与从化市为例,建立4个子系统共32个指标的耕地安全评价指标体系,对大城市郊区耕地的数量结构安全、质量安全、经济社会安全和生态安全进行综合评价。结果表明:（1）RAGA-PP模型在多目标、多因素的耕地安全综合评价中取得了满意的效果;（2）广州市郊区耕地安全评价的影响因子权重在远郊区和近郊区存在较大差别,开展不同区域对比研究更适合采用总投影方向确定的权重值。（3）由于近郊区与远郊区发展定位与发展战略迥异,城市化进程速度不同,区域耕地安全等级差别较大,近郊的番禺区耕地综合安全水平低于远郊的从化市,其中番禺区仅耕地经济社会安全水平高于从化市,而耕地的质量安全、数量安全和生态安全方面均低于从化市。     

Land system changes in the context of urbanisation: Examples from the peri-urban area of Greater Copenhagen

Peri-urban areas are characterised by great heterogeneity and rapid changes of land use. Furthermore, population composition changes as peri-urban areas offer attractive residential alternatives to city centres or more remote locations. The dynamic processes leave peri-urban areas in an in-between situation, neither city nor countryside and home to a range of functions, spanning from agricultural production to residential and recreational areas. The paper investigates the urbanisation of agricultural areas in the Greater Copenhagen region based on quantitative data collected on agricultural properties in nine study areas between 1984 and 2004. The overall conclusion is that agricultural land use has continued largely unaffected by the processes of urbanisation. However, most of the production is concentrated on a few very large full-time farms. In addition, the economic activities have been greatly diversified over the last three decades. The structural components of the areas (land use and landscape elements) thus appear more resilient than the socio-economic system (declining number of full-time farmers and increasing number of owners engaged in other gainful activities). However, at some point this discrepancy will disappear and rapid land use changes may be expected.     

城乡融合背景下半城市化地区识别与演变研究——以苏州市为例

半城市化地区作为城乡景观混杂交错、城乡功能相互渗透的过渡性地域,推进这类地区的良性发展是促进城乡融合发展的关键。对半城市化地区空间范围的精确识别是对其实施精准管控的基础前提,对半城市化地区演变规律的科学把脉可为其未来的发展规划提供重要参考。然而,由于半城市化地区的复杂性、动态性和模糊性,目前对该类地区的精细尺度定量识别研究不多。基于此,论文综合考虑半城市化地区的复杂多维特征,在多源遥感数据支持下,建立了一种高精度的半城市化地区识别方法体系：① 构建了一套覆盖社会经济和空间格局2大维度的半城市化地区识别综合指标体系;② 运用空间网格化技术和线性加权建立了半城市化特征值的计算方法; ③ 结合滑动t检验与概率密度分析实现了半城市化特征临界值的确定。最后以苏州市为实例,运用建立好的方法体系,在1 km×1 km尺度下识别出了该市2010、2015和2018年的半城市化地区空间范围,并在此基础上进一步探讨了其时空演变规律,以期为苏州市以及其他地区未来的城市化进程提供参考。实证结果显示,苏州市的半城市化地区在空间上围绕中心城区不连续分布,在时间上总体呈现减少趋势,尤其是2015—2018年间下降幅度明显,表明苏州市城镇化发展趋于有序,乡村工业化与城市的无序蔓延有所放缓。     

Group-Differentiated Perceptions of Social Impacts Related to Tourism Development

Perceived social impacts of tourism development on local residents in peripheral destinations are examined in the case of the resort city of Eilat (Israel) by utilizing a value-stretch methodology. Analysis shows that local's perceptions are group differentiated. The less locals are affiliated with tourist occupations, the less affluent they are, and the less their sense of peripherality, the more they are affected by the social consequences of tourism development. Policy implications for tourism development in such peripheral settings are suggested.     

RULING LOS ANGELES: NEIGHBORHOOD MOVEMENTS,URBAN REGIMES,AND THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

This paper examines a social movement among affluent homeowners in Los Angeles. It argues that the social movement is highly institutionalized and durable, and that it has achieved many important citywide and statewide goals during the past 20 years. The paper further argues that this social movement should rightly be considered a stable branch of the urban elite along with local business and local government. However, the homeowners movement pursues a fundamentally different sociospatial agenda than either local business or local government, and those differing agendas suggest the absence of a unified governing regime in the city. The paper examines the structure, agenda, and political alliances of the movement through the case study of the debate surrounding the spatial and political reorganization of the City of Los Angeles, the most salient element of which is the possibility of San Fernando Valley secession.     

The Nearshore as Public Space: Controlling Access to the Coastal Ocean

In this paper I examine how the politics of mobility is an important factor when considering the contentious nature of urban growth debates. By a politics of mobility I mean the political struggle over what type of transportation mode—be it automobile, transit, or walking—is developed in a city, and how urban space is configured to make various modes functional. More importantly, the politics of mobility is an extension of competing and contested ideologies and normative values about how the city should be configured and for whom. I provide a case study of Atlanta, Georgia's business elites and their negotiation of the politics of mobility as they confronted a mobility crisis of congestion and air pollution. This paper provides a platform for further comparative research on urban growth debates in an era of increasing environmental and social problems stemming from transportation policy.     

Decoding dispossession: Eviction and urban regeneration in Johannesburg's dark buildings

In January 2012 the residents of an inner‐city tenement building in Doornfontein, Johannesburg, were evicted on a court order. The building was situated in a post‐industrial neighbourhood in which thousands of South Africans and foreign nationals, many blind or disabled, live in unlawfully occupied buildings without access to water, basic sanitation, electricity and waste management services. Such buildings are known in policy discourse as ‘bad buildings’, and informally as ‘dark buildings’, invoking both a sense of developmental failure and spiritual insecurity. In this paper I analyse how urban renewal policies created social divisions and alliances not only among the residents of Chambers, which were channelled along nationalist lines, but also between the able‐bodied and disabled, and produced new social alliances. In particular, I document how a group of blind Zimbabweans experienced threats of violence and accusations of betrayal, as they were offered alternate accommodation by the evicting company because of their disability. I argue here that the pressures of private‐sector housing developments intersected with the insecurities and divisions of inner‐city social spaces and also fostered new alliances. Following the work of Deleuze and Guattari, I invoke the concept of ‘decoding dispossession’, proposing that ongoing evictions and dispossessions are characterized by simultaneous movements of ‘decoding and deterritorialization’ and ‘overcoding‐reterritorialization’.     

无锡半城市化地区的空间范围识别

半城市化地区是近年国内外城市地理研究的新焦点。半城市化地区处于城市、乡村的模糊界限之中,受城乡共同作用,具有显著的过渡性、动态性和不稳定等特征,是发展变化最大的区域,对经济社会发展空间的可持续性具有重要影响。目前,半城市化地区空间范围的确定以定性分析为主,缺乏定量分析的实证与理论研究,并且大部分拘泥于行政边界限制。本文在探讨半城市化地区内涵基础上,建立包含建设用地占比、景观紊乱度、人口密度和二三产业增加值四个指标的指标体系,以无锡市区为例,借助ArcGIS 软件运算分析指标在360 个方向上的距离衰减突变值(DDV),结合“断裂点”方法,界定出无锡半城市化地区的范围,为未来半城市化地区空间演变研究奠定基础。     

Classifying and mapping the urban transition in Vietnam

The urban transition almost always involves wrenching social adjustment as small agricultural communities are forced to adjust rapidly to industrial ways of life. Large-scale in-migration of young people, usually from poor regions, creates enormous demand and expectations for community and social services. One immediate problem planners face in approaching this challenge is how to define, differentiate, and map what is rural, urban, and transitional (i.e., peri-urban). This project established an urban classification for Vietnam by using national census and remote sensing data to identify and map the smallest administrative units for which data are collected as rural, peri-urban, urban, or urban core. We used both natural and human factors in the quantitative model: income from agriculture, land under agriculture and forests, houses with modern sanitation, and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. Model results suggest that in 2006, 71% of Vietnam's 10,891 communes were rural, 18% peri-urban, 3% urban, and 4% urban core. Of the communes our model classified as peri-urban, 61% were classified by the Vietnamese government as rural. More than 7% of Vietnam's land area can be classified as peri-urban and approximately 13% of its population (more than 11 million people) lives in peri-urban areas. We identified and mapped three types of peri-urban places: communes in the periphery of large towns and cities; communes along highways; and communes associated with provincial administration or home to industrial, energy, or natural resources projects (e.g., mining). We validated this classification based on ground observations, analyses of multi-temporal night-time lights data, and an examination of road networks. The model provides a method for rapidly assessing the rural–urban nature of places to assist planners in identifying rural areas undergoing rapid change with accompanying needs for investments in building, sanitation, road infrastructure, and government institutions.     

“设计之都”神户的创意城市建设

联合国教科文组织创意城市网络"设计之都"神户市在日本率先明确将城市设计运用于创意城市建设,提出涵盖外观形状和颜色设计以及计划与制度体系、意图与思维方式的"大设计"概念,并在此基础上制定了以建设优裕的创意城市为目标的城市发展规划,提出城市发展的方向是建设"高质量生活",以安全、安心、健康为基础,以多样性交流与融合创造新价值为特征的创意城市。"设计之都"是创意城市建设的步骤之一,其特征是充分利用神户的优势资源,进行空间的设计、经济的设计和文化的设计。     

Prosperity and the Suburban Dream: Quality of life and affordability in western Sydney

Over the past 10 years Sydney has experienced a remarkable wave of economic prosperity and growth, partly due to its developing role as a regionally significant global city. Through this period, maintaining the quality of life in the city has been regarded as particularly important. Yet traditional accounts of the global city have stressed quality-of-life features of the inner city. In this paper I examine the implications of the prosperity of global Sydney for the quality of life of western Sydney, paying particular attention to environmental amenity and the affordability of housing. The paper argues, first, that growth in the Sydney region has depended upon continued growth in western Sydney. It highlights key instances in which residents have resisted developments associated with this growth and regarded as major threats to the environmental amenity of the region. Second, the paper argues that the prosperity of Sydney, combined with changes to government policy, have impacted upon the supply of affordable rental housing in western Sydney. This is particularly significant in the case of public housing. Managing growth in the city will require attention to managing quality-of-life issues in the metropolis as a whole.     

NEOTRADITIONAL DEVELOPMENTS: THE ANATOMY OF A NEW URBAN FORM

Built at a small scale and incorporating many features of certain old-city neighborhoods, such as narrow streets and small setbacks, neotraditional developments have been designed by architects and built by a small number of developers on suburban greenfield sites since the early 1980s. The distinctive neotraditional urban form represents the convergence of certain aspects of two planning traditions—urban aesthetics and social utopianism. In this paper I outline the two traditions and show how they have been selectively appropriated by neotraditional architects and planners. I suggest that the recent restructuring and fragmentation in the suburban housing market has led to the creation of niche markets, such as the market for neotraditionalism. Using Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus, I argue that the commercial success of neotraditional developments can be explained when recognition is given to the role of relatively affluent house buyers intent on creating a habitus and appropriating symbolic capital. Habitus is defined as the system of values, dispositions, and practices that constitute and are constituted by a societal group.     

THE VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL EXPANSIONS OF CHINA'S CITY SYSTEM

Most studies of the size, growth, and distribution of cities have been based on Western economies and have identified economic factors such as scale and agglomeration economies and level of economic development as major determinants of urban growth. It is unclear whether these generalizations are applicable in socialist economies. In this paper, I argue that institutional factors have played key roles in shaping China's city system, which is characterized by declining population concentration across cities and by tremendous vertical (population growth of cities) and horizontal (addition of new cities) expansions. The empirical analysis focuses on describing the size distribution of cities, estimating a multivariate model predicting the population growth of cities, and performing a logistic regression analysis of new and existing cities. The findings underscore the effects of urban and regional development policies, socialist institutions, changes in the urban administrative system, and state and local government interests, and suggest that they as a whole are more important than economic factors in explaining the attributes and changes of China's city system. [Key words: urban growth, city system, institutional factors, China.]