Excavating Lefebvre: The right to the city and its urban politics of the inhabitant

Much current activism and scholarship has raised concern that the various processes of neoliberal restructuring are threatening democracy. More specifically, researchers in geography and other social sciences have stressed that political and economic restructuring in cities is negatively affecting the enfranchisement of urban residents. Much recent research and writing has explored progressive responses to this perceived disenfranchisement in cities. One popular trend has been a fascination with the idea of the `right to the city' as a way to respond to neoliberal urbanism and better empower urban dwellers. I argue that the right to the city holds promise, but that in the literature the idea remains both theoretically and politically underdeveloped. It remains unclear (1) what the right to the city entails or (2) how it might address current problems of disenfranchisement. This paper examines the right to the city in greater depth. It does so by offering a close reading and analysis of the intellectual roots of the idea: the writings of Henri Lefebvre. I suggest that Lefebvre's right to the city is more radical, more problematic, and more indeterminate than the current literature makes it seem. The paper concludes by suggesting that the right to the city does offer distinct potential for resisting current threats to urban enfranchisement. However, the right to the city is not a panacea. It must be seen not as a completed solution to current problems, but as an opening to a new urban politics, what I call an urban politics of the inhabitant.     

LiDAR-based three-dimensional street landscape indices for urban habitability

Streets are like the skeleton of a city. They not only guarantee urban traffic functions and facilitate business activities, but also perform an integral component of the urban landscape. Urban habitability, that is to judge whether a place is suitable for people to live, has been a popular topic for years. A mobile laser scanning (MLS) system can obtain close-range three-dimensional (3D) light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data of the sides and surfaces of urban streets. This study explored the possibility of analyzing urban street space landscapes based on MLS LiDAR, and proposed four LiDAR-based 3D street landscape indices for urban habitability: 3D green biomass, street enclosure, sunshine index, and landscape diversity index. Experiments performed in Jianye District of Nanjing (China) showed that these four street landscape indices accorded well with the actual situation and they reflected user perception of street space. Thus, the proposed indices could help us to assess urban landscape from a 3D perspective. To sum up, this study suggest a new type of data for landscape study, and provide an automatic information acquirement for urban habitability assessment.     

The people’s food: the ingredients of “ethnic” hierarchies and the development of Chinese restaurants in Rome

In the last 20 years, the growth of Chinese immigration in Italy has increased, being characterized by multiple migration strategies linked to transnational economic activities. This has been particularly the case with the Chinese immigrant community in Rome, where many of these immigrants are involved in the restaurant or import–export business. In this context, the Chinese immigrant presence in the restaurant sector will be analysed in detail within a multimethod approach developed to explore the number, location and characteristics of all Chinese restaurants that were opened and closed since the 1970s. This exercise in economic geography is linked to other questions such as power and cultural relations, urban planning practices and the discourses of racism. The development and the geography of the Chinese restaurants allow us to understand not only how far or close they are to the mainstream Italian restaurant sector, but also the spatial trajectories of Roman Chinese in general within the urban landscape. As Chinese restaurants outside China have become a symbol of transnational Chinese identity, it is worth considering the real spatial practices attached to the construction and negotiation of this transnationality.     

景观生态学在城市规划和管理中的应用

城市是典型的人工景观，空间结构上属于紧密汇聚型，功能上表现为高能流、高容量和文化上的多样性。城市景观生态研究包括城市空间结构与生态过程，城市景观风貌与城市生态建设，城市景观规划是其最直接的应用。首先论述了城市景观质量与价值评价，包括景观美学评价与景观视觉容量。城市空间结构和景观规划原则是该文论述的主题，包括城市空间布局、城市空间扩展的廊道效应以及城市绿地系统的空间结构分析；以上海和广州市的绿地系统为例进行了重点介绍，最后对于城乡交错带的景观变化进行分析，用景观格局及其动态来描述城乡交错带的城市化过程特点，介绍了上海和沈阳的典型研究。     

A review of recent urban geographic studies in India

This paper reviews the changing nature of the growing specialized trends of urban geography in India since independence, with a particular emphasis to the 1980s and early 1990s. Urban geography has emerged as a major academic sub-field in India with active researchers at its frontier. The 1980s and early 1990s are characterized by a diversified and growing trend of specialization both in inter-urban and intra-urban research in urban geography. This diversification is most clear and pronounced in intra-urban studies where the emphasis is directed towards socio-cultural aspects of the city. Conversely, inter-urban research is concerned both with analysis of patterns and trends of macro level urbanization and the processes. Although model building is in its infancy, a few static, deterministic, probabilistic and dynamic models have been constructed. There has been severe limitations in the use of computers in India, particularly the large-frame ones, so the researcher there cannot use the large scale data on national level.     

The spatial shopping behaviour of the urban elderly: A review of the literature

The spatial shopping behaviour of the urban elderly has received increasing attention from researchers in a variety of disciplines including geography, marketing, city planning, and social gerontology. Relevant literature from these diverse sources is reviewed within an organizational framework based on two ‘behavioural’ approaches to retail geography: ‘empirical-behavioural’ and ‘cognitive-behavioural’. Overall, the research findings suggest that the elderly represent a distinctive consumer segment with special problems and needs. In particular, many older shoppers are subject to a wide variety of mobility constraints which ultimately restrict their access to shopping opportunities. However, some work has discovered important differences in the spatial behaviours of subgroups of elderly consumers defined on the basis of such characteristics as health, age, household composition, marital status, income level, and residential location. It is suggested that further research needs to explore more fully how these characteristics may impose variable personal and environmental constraints upon the shopping activities of the urban elderly.     

城市风貌规划中水系风貌规划方法研究

水系风貌是城市风貌的重要组成部分,是城市风貌规划中的一个重要环节.在对水系风貌规划的重要性和对实例的分析研究后,提出了城市风貌规划中水系风貌规划的方法及内容:展现城市风貌的亲水性,满足人们对水的眷恋;赋予水系深层内涵,让水系更具有文化韵味,体现城市风貌;在合理利用的情况下并对其进行有利的保护,让其成为可持续资源.     

关闭煤矿工业广场再开发策略研究

随着我国煤炭去产能政策的有力实施,一批资源枯竭及产能落后矿井陆续关停废弃,传统的独立工矿区因此沉寂,服务于煤炭生产和职工生活的工业广场面临功能丧失、土地闲置等问题。挖掘关闭煤矿工业广场的价值并赋予其新功能,是盘活存量资源、激发独立工矿区活力的关键。以山西省晋城市关闭煤矿凤凰山矿为例,研究该矿与晋城市的发展演变及其相互作用;分析关闭煤矿工业广场空间构成要素,采用层次分析法(AHP)进行价值评估,判明主要空间要素的价值特征与更新挑战;进而探索关闭煤矿工业广场的再开发城市设计策略。分析认为,山地矿业风貌与绿色生态本底是凤凰山矿的核心价值表征,应将风貌存续与生态保育作为再开发重点。关闭煤矿需确立“矿退城进”的更新目标,主动与城市产业对接,由“封闭的工业广场”转变为“开放的城市街区”。在此基础上,提出景观引导下的秩序控制、功能空间的整合与重置、交通体系的外通与内融、矿业文脉特色的延续与塑造、既有建筑的再循环改造5个方面的城市设计策略。研究表明,通过基础设施景观化改造,可在提升矿区环境质量的同时创造城市特色;借鉴城市设计思维可为关闭煤矿保护性再开发策略的制定提供帮助,在此类资源型地区的城市更新中具有应用前景。      

高架轨道交通对城市景观的影响及应对措施初探

论文分析了高架轨道交通对城市景观的双重影响:高架桥作为一种新的城市构筑物,为人们提供了欣赏城市的新的观赏点和观赏方式;但处理不当的高架构筑物具有破坏自然景观、影响人们的视觉、造成尺度失调、影响城市色彩和谐、破坏城市原有肌理等负面影响。进而论文提出了高架轨道交通的设计原则及改善轨道交通城市形象的应对措施:第一,巧妙选线,充分利用轨道交通沿线风景资源,形成轨道交通视觉廊道;第二,提升高架桥的空间景观形象:桥下空间综合利用,完善城市功能;桥侧空间精心设计,增强桥体人性化因素;重视高架桥体及附属物的形象设计,达到技术与艺术的完美统一;第三,建设具有地域风格的换乘站。     

Study on Jinan urban construction planning based on the protection of karst landscape

Study on urban construction planning based on karst landscape protection contributes to sustainable development of urban construction in karst area. Jinan is a city famous for karst spring water. Karst landscape plays a decisive role in urban construction. Through hydrogeological analysis, the distribution characteristics of karst mountain, cave, gully and flat dam in Jinan are analyzed. It is revealed that various karst landforms are involved in the spring circulation process to varying degrees. Some karst landforms have been destroyed in the process of urban construction and the karst landscape has been overexploited resulting in the direct or indirect weakening of spring water recharge and infiltration capacity and the decrease of spring water flow. Through the study of the principle of organic combination of karst landscape and urban construction planning, on the basis of protecting the ecological environment of the south, paying attention to the overall protection of the karst geomorphology system and the principle of accessibility of the karst landscape, the development countermeasures guided by urban planning are put forward based on karst landforms protection. On the basis of fully considering the special karst landform conditions in Jinan, the countermeasures are that the ecological control red line of urban construction planning should be set up based on karst mountains and valleys in southern of Jinan City. It is suggested that the bare carbonate rock continuous mountain foot line in the direct recharge area should be taken as the south control red line of urban development and included in the overall planning. The urban landscape is mainly displayed in the main axis based on karst mountains and springs, constructing East-West Axis-characteristic Landscape Belt along the Wufeng Mountain-Langmao Mountain-Hero Mountain-Qianfo Mountain-Long cave-Panlong cave-Jinping Mountain line and North-South Axis Landscape Belt along the Baotu Spring- Qianfo Mountain line, Baiquan-Panlong cave line, Baimai spring-Dajian Mountain line. Based on the karst river valleys and the river system, the urban spatial pattern is constructed, forming ecological corridor, restoring infiltration function of river. The form of urban construction should be shaped based on karst landform and the river system. The main form is semi-star like radiation type and the combination of central intensive type and zonal type. Based on the whole protection of karst geomorphology system and the scientific molding of karst landscape, the ecological landscape city with the symbiosis of spring and urban can be built.     

济南破损山体概况及生态修复技术研究

城市破损山体不仅造成了大量陡坡岩面裸露,恶化了城市自然生态环境,而且还带来了坍塌、滑坡等安全隐患,是城市建设发展中亟待解决的问题。该文首先对济南城市破损山体现状及修复情况进行了调查分析,结合破损山体具体的生态修复工程实例,较详细总结研究了破损山体生态修复的技术和方法。经过几年的生态修复建设与养护管理,济南破损山体的生态景观功能得到了极大的恢复提升,该文筛选总结出的台地续坡式等治理方式及挂网喷播等生态修复技术,可为类似破损山体的生态修复提供借鉴。     

Canal-side highway in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam – Issues of urban cultural conservation and tourism development

Since the city’s founding back in 1698 on the old Khmer city of Prei Nokor, rivers and canals have always been Ho Chi Minh City’s (HCMC’s) primary means of transportation. Despite the decline of the utilization of the city’s abundant waterways due to the increasing development of modern aerial services and more convenient roads, the HCMC’s canal-based urban form, with its water-based socio-economic structures that include port-boat-market activities and canal handcraft villages, still processes a rich cultural and religious diversity that dates back to the history of the city itself. Currently, developments in the city’s transportation systems are having a damaging impact on the canals’ cultural background. Rather than being recognized as a significant cultural asset that identifies the city, the canal system has been physically reorganized as the city’s drainage system and valued as only a supplementary landscape element; canal communities have been evicted, and canal built fabric has been removed due to recent canal-side transportation developments. To revitalize the urban cultural identity that is possessed by the canal system and to enrich it as a contemporary valuable layer in the city’s dynamic regional development, it is critical to implement cultural conservation and tourism in the development of canal-side transportation and supplementary projects in the canal vicinity.     

Budapest's built environment in transition

The construction of major new buildings has been noticed in Budapest since the mid 1980s. New hotels, office blocks, housing projects and most recently shopping centres have become a prominent feature of the landscape in several districts of the city. The paper first outlines a conceptualisation of the `Transition' in terms of eastern Europe as a whole identifying internationalisation, Europeanisation and national government policies as key strands in a specific case of a process of change interpreted as the interaction of antecedent conditions and current processes. It then addresses the question of conceptualising the built environment in terms of the `Transition' and three `schools of thought' in geography stressing the urban morphogenesis approach. It thus poses the question of how radical a change has `occurred on the ground' since 1989–1990. Consequently the paper examines the transition in the built environment of Budapest under three principal headings: (a) the antecedent conditions of the built environment of Budapest by spatial structure, (b) the relationship between new buildings and current processes, (c) comparing models of the spatial structure of Budapest as a socialist city and as a post-socialist-(industrial) city or post-industrial (capitalist) city. It concludes that although the processes shaping the city's built environment have changed quite radically since 1990 the physical fabric of the city and its antecedent usage have strongly influenced the spatial impact of the current processes. Budapest is a post-socialist industrial city with capitalist forms fitted into it. The city is passing from socialist to capitalist processes in a way that suggests that morphological analysis has clear potential in theorising the relationship between the global and the local. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

基于遥感夜间灯光数据的大连城市用地扩张的空间特征分析

为揭示大连城市用地扩张的空间分布特征,基于DSMP/OLS夜间灯光数据提取1998—2013年大连地域边界,并得到各地区的灯光阈值及地域边界分区统计面积。通过计算不同时期不同区域的城市用地增长景观格局指数,研究该市16年来的城市用地扩张方向、强度和空间景观格局变化,以揭示大连20年来城市用地扩张的空间分布特征。结果表明,城市用地扩张主要集中在沙河口区、中山区和西岗区,并以其为中心向甘井子区、旅顺口区、金州区等区域扩张。城市用地空间格局总体基本稳定,受地理条件、空间距离、经济发展和政策指引等因素的影响,城市用地扩张在不同方向上差异化显著。研究成果可作为大连城市规划的依据。     

Urban landscape extraction and analysis based on optical and microwave ALOS satellite data

Accurate mapping of urban land cover from satellite data provides essential input to urban landscape analysis, modelling and urban ecosystem studies. Additionally, analysis of urban landscape metrics will provide a positive step towards comprehensive understanding of the features of urban landscape structure and further planning. In the present study, multi-spectral Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS)/Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer type 2 (AVNIR-2) images and ALOS/Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) dual-polarized (FBD) microwave images were used to extract urban land cover information by applying the decision tree method, and additional Advanced Space borne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER/GDEM) was used to reduce the effects of mountains in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images due to high backscattering from urban construction land. A set of landscape metrics, such as landscape diversity, edge density and landscape shape indices with supplementary ecological meanings, were chosen to quantitatively analysis urban landscape patterns in arid environments. The overall accuracy assessment result was 91.50%, and the experimental results demonstrate that synergetic use of optical and SAR ALOS data has the potential and advantages for Arid Urban Region mapping, while the decision tree method showed intuitive simplicity and computational efficiency. The quantitative analysis results of landscape metrics showed that distribution of landscape types in Urumqi city were inhomogeneous, the urban landscape dominated by a few classes. Urbanization in this region has resulted in dramatic increases in patch density (PD), edge density (ED) and landscape shape complexity.     

基于3S技术的岩溶地区城市景观生态安全评价——以贵阳市为例

基于景观生态学理论,借助多时相遥感数据与GIS空间分析技术,运用“压力-状态-响应（press-state-response,PSR）”模型,构建岩溶地区城市景观生态安全评价体系,通过空间叠加分析得到2000年和2013年贵阳市城市生态安全等级分布图,并就其空间分布规律与演化特征进行了对比分析,结果表明:2000年、2013年贵阳市城市生态安全指数均较低,2000年处于安全级别以上的值为3.04,2013年处于安全级别以上的值下降到1.78,在空间分布上呈西南向东北递增的趋势;在2000-2013年间,景观生态安全指数除湿地以外其他景观类型均呈现明显的下降趋势,其中农田恶化较为明显,湿地是唯一改善的景观类型。研究时段内贵阳市景观生态安全状况处于恶化趋势,因而建议在今后的城市规划与建设中应优化土地利用格局,以提高城市景观生态安全水平。      

HAND (height above nearest drainage) tool and satellite-based geospatial analysis of Hyderabad (India) urban floods,September 2016

Urban flooding needs to be understood holistically and addressed geospatially by all stakeholders. In the present study, an attempt is made to understand the problem of urban flooding in part of Hyderabad city (Zone-12) geospatially considering the satellite-based changes in land use/land cover between 1989 and 2016, identifying low-lying areas vulnerable to flooding using HAND (height above nearest drainage) model in conjunction with the analysis of high-resolution satellite images and ground based validation of affected locations during rains of September 2016. The study shows that Zone-12 has undergone significant increase in impervious cover by 42% between 1989 and 2016. The impact of urbanization has obliterated the footprints of stream network, significantly changing the hydrological landscape due to burial of channels and concretization of lake beds. The interconnected channel network and lake system acting as sinks to absorb high runoff during monsoons have been encroached upon aggravating the urban flooding problem. The study shows that HAND model can be an effective tool under data scarce environments, limited cloud-free high-resolution satellite data availability during floods to have first cut baseline information on flood vulnerable areas.     

American influence on Japanese human geography: A focus on the quantitative and GIS revolutions

Japanese geography has been greatly influenced by American academia since the Second World War. The first wave was the quantitative revolution, which occurred at the end of the 1950s. Sophisticated analytical techniques and fine spatial models were introduced to Japanese geography and used in empirical studies, especially in the field of urban/transportation geography in the 1970s. The second wave was the new geography in the 1980s, including behavioral, radical and humanistic approaches. The third wave was the GIS revolution in the 1990s, which has been promoting a problem-solving approach focusing on policy matters. In this paper, I discuss how American geography has impacted on the development of Japanese human geography during this half century.     

From “cartoneros” to “recolectores urbanos”. The changing rhetoric and urban waste management policies in neoliberal Buenos Aires

This study contributes to the existent literature on neoliberal urban governance examining the process-based character of this formation. I maintain that neoliberal governance is a fluid and evolving formation which is continuously being constructed and reconstructed beneath a rhetorical veneer of inevitable emergence and permanence. In this context, this work examines the interconnections between neoliberal urban ascendancy, changing rhetoric and urban waste management policies, and waste pickers (cartoneros), in a case study setting, Buenos Aires. Since 2002, the neoliberal urban governance in Buenos Aires (its institutions, programs and policies) has mobilized different rhetoric and policies to negotiate the waste pickers’ “disturbing” and “dirty” presence in the streets. In that process, the waste pickers, originally marginalized and stigmatized by the neoliberal discourse, have been regulated and disciplined into legal and “well behaved” workers. I would argue that, regulating this activity does not entail giving the waste pickers an opportunity to become central actors in the future of urban waste management in the city. Rather, it is compatible with the logic of the local neoliberal urban projects, focused on disciplining the city’s physical and social landscape as new opportunities for growth and development continue to emerge.     

Urban development and urban geography in Romania: The contribution of Vintila Mihailescu

Urban development has been a dramatic consequence of modernisation in Romania over the last hundred years. Although there are some differences between the periods of capitalism and socialism — notably the socialist emphasis on the central planning of industrial growth rather than the development of a well-rounded urban society — the population resident in towns has increased inexorably from 2.08 million in 1912 (16.3% of the total population to the country) to 3.71 million (23.4%) in 1948 and 10.49 million (47.3%) in 1980. The scope of Romanian geography has plainly altered in response to the shift in the rural-urban balance, all the more so in view of the long-standing concentration of effort on domestic issues. The paper examines the relationship between urban development and urban geography during this century: urban geography has become an integral part of the discipline whereas in 1900 interest was negligible. The transition has not been entirely smooth but considerable coherence arises from the work of Vintila Mihailescu (1890–1978) : a complete geographer but one who always emphasised the importance of urban geography. Since his death new leaders have emerged to ensure a continued commitment to what is now a fundamental element of Romanian geography.