Simulating urban growth under planning policies through parcel-based cellular automata (ParCA) model

In recent decades, the cellular automata model, among the urban development prediction models, has been applied considerably. Studies show that the output of conventional cellular automata models is sensitive to cell size and neighborhood structure, and varies with changes in the size of these parameters. To solve this problem, vector-based cellular automata models have been introduced which have overcome the mentioned limitations and presented better results. The aim of this study was to present a parcel-based cellular automata (ParCA) model for simulating urban growth under planning policies. In this model, undeveloped areas are first subdivided into smaller parcels, based on some geometric parameters; then, neighborhood effect of parcels is defined in a radial structure, based on a weighted function of distance, area, land-use, and service level of irregular cadastral parcels. After that, neighborhood effect is evaluated using three components, including compactness, dependency and compatibility. The presented model was implemented and analyzed using data from municipal region 22 of Tehran. The obtained results indicated the high ability of ParCA model in allocating various land-uses to parcels in the appropriateness of the layout of different land-uses. This model can be used in decision-making and urban land-use planning activities, since it provides the possibility of allocating different urban land-use types and assessing different urban-growth scenarios.     

Simulating urban growth in a metropolitan area based on weighted urban flows by using web search engine

As a consequence of rapid and immoderate urbanization, simulating urban growth in metropolitan areas effectively becomes a crucial and yet difficult task. Cellular automata (CA) model is an attractive tool for understanding complex geographical phenomena. Although intercity urban flows, the key factors in metropolitan development, have already been taken into consideration in CA models, there is still room for improvement because the influences of urban flows may not necessarily follow the distance decay relationship and may change over time. A feasible solution is to define the weights of intercity urban flows. Therefore, this study presents a novel method based on weighted urban flows (CA_WeightedFlow) with the support of web search engine. The relatedness measured by the co-occurrences of the cities’ names (toponyms) on massive web pages can be deemed as the weights of intercity urban flows. After applying the weights, the gravitational field model is integrated with Logistic-CA to fulfill the modeling task. This method is employed to the urban growth simulation in the Pearl River Delta, one of the most urbanized metropolitan areas in China, from 2005 to 2008. The results indicate that our method outperforms traditional methods with respect to two measures of calibration goodness-of-fit. For example, CA_WeightedFlow can yield the best value of ‘figure of merit’. Moreover, the proposed method can be further used to explore various development possibilities by simply changing the weights.     

Simulating urban growth boundaries using a patch-based cellular automaton with economic and ecological constraints

Urban growth boundaries (UGBs) have been applied in many rapid urbanizing areas to alleviate the problems of urban sprawl. Although empirical research has stressed the importance of ecological protection in UGB delineation, existing UGB models lack a component for the assessment of ecologically sensitive areas. To address this problem, we develop an innovative method that is capable of simulating UGB alternatives with economic and ecological constraints. Our method employs a patch-based cellular automaton (i.e. SA-Patch-CA) for simulating future urban growth, constrained by the ecological protection areas produced by an agent-based land allocation optimization model (AgentLA). The delineation of UGBs is also based on the estimated future urban land demand derived from support vector regression (SVR). The proposed method is applied in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), China. Three scenarios are designed to represent different objectives of future industrial transitions. The results indicate that increasing the shares of low energy consumption industries and tertiary industries can effectively reduce urban land demand. By overlapping the simulations, we found that the areal agreement of the simulated UGBs among the three scenarios accounts for approximately 88% of the total area. These areas can then be considered as the primary locations for establishing the UGBs.     

城市经济、环境与社会协调发展评价——以西北五省会城市为例

 通过模糊分级评价方法对西北五省会城市的城市经济、环境与社会协调发展进行评价。首先,对区域经济与环境协调发展评价的研究现状进行梳理;其次,建立城市经济、环境与社会协调发展的评价指标体系,改进和使用模糊分级评价方法, 引入协调度、协调发展度和协调发展趋势指数的模型;再次,对中国西北五省会城市自2003-2009年的经济、环境与社会协调发展状况进行评价分析;最后得出,西北五个城市经济、环境和社会协调发展的总体水平不高,并且城市经济系统、环境系统和社会系统之间的协调发展存在着差异,影响了城市协调发展的总体水平。五城市中协调发展状况最好的是银川,其次为乌鲁木齐、西安、兰州,最差是西宁。应引起注意的是,西安、西宁和乌鲁木齐的社会系统处于衰退趋势。     

国家主体功能区战略背景下东北地区城市经济增长的动力与路径——基于城市暂住人口视角

经济、人口、资源与环境的协调发展是新型城市化战略的核心,也是国家主体功能区规划的重要内容。鉴于各类主体功能区在东北地区并存,考察其经济增长与城市化开发路径,可为全国提供较好借鉴。以东北地区城市暂住人口为切入点,探讨了城市暂住人口与经济增长相互影响的作用机制,进而构建暂住人口与经济增长联立方程,并使用东北地区34个地级城市的面板数据进行实证分析,考量以暂住人口吸纳与承载能力为标志的城市化潜力与经济增长的动力。研究表明:在国家主体功能区战略背景下,需充分尊重和考虑东北地区各类开发区域与城市的经济、社会、自然与生态状况,应通过中心城市产业结构调整、生态功能区人口迁出等途径进行集中均衡式的城市化开发,积极加快推进基本公共服务均等化和城市内部基础设施完善。     

中国城市建设用地扩张与财政收入增长的面板格兰杰因果检验

土地开发已成为当前研究的一个焦点,但是对“土地财政”现象的研究仍集中在其形成机制方面,而很少证实土地是否及如何推动了地方财政收入的增长。为此,本文基于《城市统计年鉴》（1985-2011） 的面板数据,构建面板误差修正模型和随机效应模型,运用格兰杰因果检验探讨城市建设用地扩张与城市财政收入增长之间的因果关系,并对“土地财政”的影响机制、区域差异和开发效率进行初步探讨。结果显示,从1995 年开始,中国城市的土地开发是推动其地方财政收入增长的格兰杰原因。但是这种效应主要为即期的影响,而对房地产开发和工业增值税的长期推动效果不太显著,这暗示了土地财政在中国有过度的倾向。从区域差异来看,土地开发对地方财政收入的推动幅度在中西部地区或在100 万人口以上的超大城市更大,且随城市规模的增加其影响效果更为显著。     

中国撤县（市）设区对城市经济增长的影响分析

撤县（市）设区是通过打破行政区经济,减少行政区边界,实现以地级市为基础的经济一体化的重要手段,采用政策评估的常用工具——倍差法,对中国1990-2007年的撤县（市）设区的样本进行了分析,发现撤县（市）设区对城市经济增长具有约5年的短期促进作用,主要表现在人均GDP增长率、人均固定资产投资增长率、人均消费增长率等方面,对人均道路面积和人均公共汽车数量的增长率则是先抑后扬,对相邻城市的经济增长则具有约2年的短期促进作用;并以佛山撤县（市）设区为案例,分析了短期促进作用的来源和长期激励消失的原因,认为基础设施投资是政府在撤县（市）设区后的主要行为,以此带动产业转移和房地产消费,进而促进了经济增长;但由于撤县（市）设区削弱了地方政府的发展权限,向上级政府集中了资源的控制权,使得地方长期经济发展的激励消失。     

Provincializing urban appropriation: Agonistic transgression as a mode of actually existing appropriation in South African cities

Urban appropriation is a key dimension of both Lefebvre's widely hailed ‘Right to the City’ and Bayat's concept of ‘quiet encroachment’. For Lefebvre, appropriation is a (generally unrealized) claim by those who do not ‘have’ the city of a right to ‘take’ it. Bayat, in contrast, characterizes actually existing appropriation as motivated by everyday needs, not aimed at wider social change. While both theorizations may be useful, we argue that a third mode of appropriation is apparent in South African urban contexts. Actors often act in ways that could be characterized as appropriative, yet do not work to consolidate an abrogated appropriative right or durable permission. Nor are they adequately explained as apolitical or individualistic; the logic used to justify them similarly is based neither on rights nor needs. We label such appropriation ‘agonistically transgressive’. We argue that agonistically transgressive appropriations are particularly evident in post‐apartheid South Africa, in part because of changing urban conditions and consequent renegotiations of spatial regulation. Using examples of urban land appropriation for housing in South Africa, we briefly illustrate how thinking pluralistically about urban appropriation might help better understand its actually existing forms in—and beyond—the global South.     

Development trends among Moscow Oblast cities and some issues in the regulation of the growth of Moscow

Reasons for the continuing growth of central Moscow in comparison with little growth in subsidiary cities in the surrounding Moscow Oblast are examined. The author attributes this uneven growth to the concentration of shopping facilities in central Moscow. It is noted that past attempts to slow the growth of central Moscow have failed and that the only strategy likely to succeed in the future would involve developing the infrastructure of the surrounding subcenters.     

Environmental justice in urban greening for subtropical Asian cities: the view from Taipei

Whilst an extensive body of literature exists on the environmental justice implications of urban greening in North America, Europe and to an extent Australasia, there are fewer analogous studies for tropical zone Asian city contexts. Given increasing global interest in the potential for urban greenspace to contribute to resilience in the face of environmental change and the higher vulnerability of Asian cities to environmental shocks, this is a notable gap. In response, this paper evaluates the contours of environmental justice debates within urban greenspace planning for one subtropical Asian city—Taipei. Through analysis of newspaper reporting on urban greenspace planning within Taipei, the potential and limitations of greenspace planning in contributing to equitably delivering benefits from urban greenspace towards resilience are assessed. Findings suggest that claims to environmental injustice in greenspace debates within Taipei follow broadly similar lines to controversies in Europe and North America. Nevertheless, the need for specific knowledge to understand the different ecosystem services provided by tropical zone ecosystems, and the potential for conflicts over greenspace versus development to be heightened in dense Asian city settings, are highlighted as potential areas where environmental justice debates in an Asian urban greening context may differ from Western cities.     

Changes in American urban floodplain occupancy since 1958: the experiences of nine cities

In 1958, researchers from the University of Chicago documented increases in the number of structures in the floodplains of 17 American cities, a phenomenon attributed to the prevalence of flood control structures. Because federal policies have shifted to managing floodplains, this paper updates the 1958 study for nine of the cities. Several trends are apparent. Development pressures determine flood-plain encroachment; floodplain management regulations have been implemented where it was easiest to do so. Further, structural measures continue to dominate. Thus, while many local officials are becoming more aware of advantages of flood-plain regulation, implementation and enforcement are inconsistent and uneven.     

Simulating trends in poverty and income inequality on the basis of 1991 and 2001 census data: a tale of two cities

How much does the 2001 census tell us about the changes in people's life in British cities and regions since 1991? This paper attempts to answer this question by telling the stories of two British northern cities: Leeds and Sheffield. In particular, the paper investigates and compares socio-economic change in these cities on the basis of actual 1991 and 2001 census data as well as estimated non-census data. A static spatial microsimulation model is used to combine the outputs of the 1991 and 2001 censuses of UK population with data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) data. In particular, selected Small Area Statistics (SAS) tables from the 1991 and 2001 censuses are used as constraints in the spatial microsimulation modelling exercise, which aims to reweight BHPS household records so that they satisfy these constraints. The paper briefly discusses the change in these census variables across different localities of the two cities. It is then shown how the changes in these variables affect the simulation of non-census variables. Further, the microsimulation model is used to estimate the trends in income inequalities and child poverty between and within the two cities. Finally, the paper discusses the implication of the research findings for policy formulation.     

Governing urban vacancy in post-crash dublin: contested property and alternative social projects

The scale and severity of property crashes following the global financial crisis has made vacancy a more visible and politically significant feature of cities. Although research has focused on urban experiments in vacant spaces, there has been less emphasis on how the contested property relations around vacancy remake urban governance. In this paper, we argue that debates about vacancy have been a central concern in post-crisis urban governance. In the first part of the paper we draw two conceptual approaches into a dialogue and apply them to an analysis of vacant space: that of Nicholas Blomley on property and Elizabeth Povinelli on “alternative social projects”. In the second part of the paper, we critically analyse how three groups discursively construct the need to “activate” and “re-use” vacant spaces in Dublin: grassroots groups, urban policy-makers, and financial actors. We argue that governing vacancy will be a key feature of post-crisis urbanisation.     

城市热环境调节服务供需失衡关键区识别与优先级划分

城市热环境效应严重威胁人类生命安全和社会经济的可持续发展,识别热环境调节服务供需失衡关键区对于缓解城市热环境效应至关重要。本文基于环境风险评估框架和环境公平理论,构建了城市热环境调节服务供需评价指标体系与研究框架：选取危险源、暴露度、脆弱性指标,评价城市居民对热环境调节服务的需求水平;选取热环境调节效率指标评价绿色基础设施对热环境调节服务的供给能力;使用供需匹配和优先级指数识别供需失衡关键区,并划分规划干预优先级。结果表明： ① 厦门岛城市热环境危险源、暴露度和脆弱性之间存在明显的空间异质性,3项指标共同决定需求水平,高需求区占比29.13%,并呈现出“全域分散,局部密集”的空间格局特征。② 厦门岛绿色基础设施空间占比集散特征明显,决定了城市热环境调节供给能力分布不均,低值区占比72.9%,且与热环境调节需求水平存在相反的局部空间集聚特征。③ 厦门岛城市热环境调节服务供需关系具有“高供-高需”“低供-高需”“低供-低需”和“高供-低需”4种类型,其中有451个单元处于“低供-高需”失衡状态,面临供不应求的严峻挑战。④ 有84个单元处于高干预优先级别,主要分布于马垅社区、江村社区、屿后社区及鹭江社区等片区,该类区域是需要优先调控的关键区。本文可为高效选址,针对性地制定城市热环境缓解策略提供科学依据,所构建的指标体系与研究框架适用于其他城市。     

Simulating urban dynamics in China using a gradient cellular automata model based on S-shaped curve evolution characteristics

Cellular automata (CA) have been efficiently used to express the complexity and dynamics of cities at different scales. However, those large-scale simulation models typically use only binary values to represent urbanization states without considering mixed types within a cell. They also ignore differences among the cells in terms of their temporal evolution characteristics at different urbanization stages. This study establishes a gradient CA for solving such problems while considering development differences among the cells. The impervious surface area data was used to detect the urbanization states and temporal evolution trends of the grid cells. Transition rules were determined with the incorporation of urban development theory expressed as an S-shaped curve. China was selected as the case study area to validate the performance of the gradient CA for a national simulation. A comparison was also made to a traditional binary logistic-CA. The results demonstrated that the gradient CA achieved higher accuracies in terms of both spatial patterns and quantitative assessment indices. The simulation pattern derived from the gradient CA can better reflect the local disparity and temporal characteristics of urban dynamics. A national urban expansion for 2050 was also simulated, and is expected to provide important data for ecological assessments.     

Urban re-generations: afterword to special issue on the politics of urban greening in Australian cities

ABSTRACT

‘Urban re-generations' is written as an afterword to the special issue of Australian Geographer on ‘The Politics of Urban Greening in Australian Cities'. The collection prompts a deep questioning of reparative and regenerative work associated with greening, green spaces and green infrastructures. The climate-driven 2019-2020 bushfire crisis and COVID-19 have amplified the visibility of the more-than-human connectivity of our cities and the deep underlying structures of social and environmental inequity underpinning a variety of urban green spaces and agendas. Inspired by the articles in this special issue, the afterword explores how we might call back the grammars and practices of regeneration from their service to the neo-liberal, settler-colonial city and instead nurture reparative de-colonial practices that aid in the collaborative work of re-composing, becoming into better relation with, and working in modes of situated historical and cultural difference, with green and just cities.     

Integrating GIS and data warehousing in a Web environment: A case study of the US 1880 Census

While the business intelligence sector, involving data warehouses and online analytical processing (OLAP) technologies, is experiencing strong growth in the IT marketplace, relatively little attention has been devoted to the problem of utilizing such tools in conjunction with GIS. This study contributes to the development of this research area by examining the issues involved in the design and implementation of an integrated data warehouse and GIS system that delivers analytical OLAP and mapping results in real‐time across the Web. The case study chosen utilizes individual records from the US 1880 population census, which have recently been made available by the North Atlantic Population Project. Although historical datasets of this kind present a number of challenges for data warehousing, the results indicate that the integrated approach adopted offers a much more flexible and powerful analytical methodology for this kind of large social science dataset than has hitherto been available.