Syracuse,sidewalks, and snow: the slippery realities of public space

This article addresses sidewalks as particular kinds of public spaces. Sidewalks of residential areas have been understudied; debates have tended to concentrate on pedestrian flows in commercial districts. By discussing the snowy sidewalks of Syracuse, New York, this article asks how sidewalks appear in law, and how responsibility for sidewalks is divided between governments and property owners. According to law and ordinances, sidewalks are responsibility of adjacent property owners. Unofficial monitoring has turned property owners’ sidewalk responsibilities away from questions of liability to questions of morality. Sidewalks evince a moral order, where questions concern not only pedestrian flows or laws, but also attitudes of others. A snowy sidewalk appears as a contested moral order, whose publicity is questionable because of the sidewalk’s reliance on private responsibility and policing. In the end, then, this article provides insights into how laws concerning public space are both maintained and questioned in everyday practices, and how the regulatory systems advance—or hinder—the publicity of public spaces like sidewalks.     

基于微信公众平台的天地图地名更新技术应用研究

针对目前天地图地名数据更新存在的针对性差、专业性强、频率低等问题,本研究利用微信等新媒体获取地图变化信息并进行地名数据更新,提出了基于微信公众平台的当前地理位置主动式获取更新方法、电子地图发现式更新和指定条件查询式更新等方法,在天地图山东地名数据更新中得到了应用,相对于传统的地名更新模式,此方式数据更新频率更快、成本更加低廉,有助于保证天地图山东的数据现势性。     

Water and the entrepreneurial city: The territorial expansion of public utility companies from Colombia and the Netherlands

Since the mid-1980s, liberalization has motivated numerous water supply reforms. Among these, privatization has received the most attention. Yet, its actual scope has been limited. Beyond privatization, the territorial expansion of municipally owned water corporations into new service areas can be witnessed in countries as diverse as Italy, South Africa, Canada, Colombia and the Netherlands. Generally, the activities of public water corporations are analyzed through the lens of commercialization. This framework is central to understanding recent shifts in water supply. Yet, while it addresses the effects of commercialization on service quality and access, it rarely integrates the influence of shifts in social reproduction and collective consumption in structuring reform. Drawing on theories of urban entrepreneurialism, I attempt to advance a broader analytical framework that is more amenable to integrating the diversity of processes involved, including but not limited to commercialization. At the same time, the territorial expansion of municipally owned water corporations suggests ways to rethink urban entrepreneurialism: it is not only commercial, it is also social, and it is Schumpeterian. To make these points, this article examines the efforts of two public water corporations to go international: EPM of Medellín, Colombia and WMD of Drenthe, the Netherlands.     

Citizen science and the power of public participation in marine spatial planning

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is becoming increasingly used in the sustainable management of marine and coastal ecosystems. However, limitations on time and resources often restrict the data available for MSP and limit public engagement and participation in the MSP process. While citizen science is being increasingly used to provide fine-scale environmental data across large terrestrial planning areas, there has been little uptake in MSP to date. This paper demonstrates how consistent citizen observations can be used to identify hotspots of good and poor environmental health across a MSP region, and where environmental health has improved or degraded in the past five years; information that is difficult to obtain by other means. The study demonstrates how citizen science provides valuable insight into environmental health across a MSP region, while fostering a supportive space for the public to contribute their own observations and participate in the planning process.     

Understanding technological,cultural, and environmental motivators explaining the adoption of citizen science apps for coastal environment monitoring

Environmental and nature conservation authorities are calling for a collective effort to break or reduce the current cycle of environmental degradation. Much of the response depends on scientific knowledge production based on thematically and geographically comprehensive datasets. Citizen science (CS) is a cost-effective support tool for scientific research that provides means for building large and comprehensive datasets and promoting public awareness and participation. One of the greatest challenges of CS is to engage citizens and retain participants in the project. Our work addresses this challenge by (1) defining the role that technological, cultural, and environmental dimensions play in the adoption of CS apps for coastal environment monitoring, and (2) providing base knowledge about the profile of the apps’ most likely users and the functional features they require to be successful. Collectivists and people who assume a green identity are the most likely users of these apps. Drivers of their use are the promotion of citizen empowerment, habit development, provision of facilitating conditions, and proof of environmental performance.The outcome of this study is a set of guidelines for project managers, app developers, and policymakers for citizens’ engagement and retention in CS coastal environment monitoring projects through their apps.     

Gaining public engagement to restore coral reef ecosystems in the face of acute crisis

The twin crisis of biodiversity loss and climate change make it urgent to find ways of restoring natural ecosystems, including coral reefs. Methods for coral reef restoration are rapidly advancing, bringing with them a range of potential risks and opportunities. Attention to public engagement in the governance of such activities therefore becomes critical. This research examines public attitudinal and behavioral engagement in ‘traditional’ coral restoration projects in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (i.e. coral gardening at relatively small scales). Grounded on dual-process decision-making and trust theories, rational factors (i.e., perceived benefits), emotions (i.e., hope and guilt) and trust are conceptually three main determinants of public engagement in ecological restoration. We used a mixed-method approach, including 63 individual interviews and a follow-up survey with 1585 participants, to clarify the roles of these psychological factors in motivating public engagement in current coral restoration projects. Trust was found to be the most important factor influencing public acceptance (i.e., attitudinal engagement) of coral restoration, while the emotion of guilt was the most influential factor affecting public support (i.e., behavioral engagement). Therefore, when advocating for conservation projects, different campaigns could be implemented with: (1) positive messages of hope and trust to gain public acceptance for government-funded restoration projects and (2) messages highlighting individual responsibility to motivate behavioral support to scale up restoration projects.     

Public concerns about transboundary haze: A comparison of Indonesia,Singapore, and Malaysia

Public concerns about environmental problems create narrative structures that influence policy by allocating roles of blame, responsibility, and appropriate behavior. This paper presents an analysis of public concerns about transboundary haze resulting from forest fires in Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia for crises experienced in 1997, 2005 and 2013. The source of the information is content analysis of 2231 articles from representative newspapers in each country. The study shows that newspaper reporting about haze has changed from a discussion of the potential health and economic impacts of fires resulting partly naturally from El Niño-induced droughts, toward an increasing vilification of Indonesia for not ratifying the 2002 Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution; plus criticism of Singaporean and Malaysian companies investing in palm oil plantations, and ASEAN. Attention to climate change and potential biodiversity loss linked to haze, however, remains low. The paper argues that newspaper analysis of public concerns, despite political influences on the press, offers insights into how public criticism is voiced in these countries, and how perceived responsibility for action is changing.     

Involving the public in the impact assessment of offshore renewable energy facilities

Public participation in decision-making about development has many benefits especially in the coastal zone and in the near-shore marine environment. This research expands the discussion of public involvement in decisions about marine resource use by examining public participation in environmental impact assessment as relevant for offshore renewable energy facilities. A review of empirical and theoretical research supports the development of a framework for further analysis. The framework consists of five main features: (1) effective communication, (2) broad-based inclusion, (3) prioritization, (4) early three-way learning, and (5) alternatives analysis. The paper's concluding sections explore the relevance of such a framework and indicate possible applications.