Linked and Independent African American Migration from Los Angeles

Empirical evidence of environmental performance of urban areas designed according to the principles of sustainable urbanism is limited. Using the case study of Civano, a planned development that was designed and marketed as a sustainable community in Tucson, Arizona, we quantify fine-scale differences in urban form and delivery of ecosystem services. We found that the urban design of the first phase of development translated to the lowest surface temperatures and highest albedo and vegetative density. The first and second phases of the development greatly reduced potable water consumption through the addition of nonpotable resources; however, the second phase had higher temperatures and less dense vegetation than even the conventional development. Our results show modest improvements in environmental performance through sustainable urbanism and suggest further refinement in fine-scale spatial analysis of the role of urban design in the provisioning of services.     

Cultivating the sustainable city: urban agriculture policies and gardening projects in Minneapolis,Minnesota

In the past 20 years, municipal governments across the United States have increasingly tried to incorporate environmental efforts into city business and policies. Urban sustainability has become the key concept around which such activities are organized. Official sustainability plans are most often implemented through indicators and metrics. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, urban gardening, in a variety of forms, has been the focus of ongoing citizen- and NGO-led environmental efforts, as well as municipal measures of sustainability. Here, debates around the recent adoption of a city urban agriculture policy, as well as a program to encourage the installation of raingardens in neighborhoods across the city, reveal some of the rich variations in gardening practices and spaces. These far exceed the relatively narrow official focus on sustainability indicators. Better understanding how urban sustainability initiatives might work with, but also move beyond, indicators may provide directions toward wider visions of sustainable urban life.     

Uneven development of the sustainable city: shifting capital in Portland,Oregon

Portland, Oregon, is renowned as a paradigmatic “sustainable city.” Yet, despite popular conceptions of the city as a progressive ecotopia and the accolades of planners seeking to emulate its innovations, Portland’s sustainability successes are inequitably distributed. Drawing on census data, popular media, newspaper archives, city planning documents, and secondary source histories, we attempt to elucidate the structural origins of Portland’s “uneven development,” exploring how and why the urban core of this paragon of sustainability has become more White and affluent while its outer eastside has become more diverse and poor. We explain how a “sustainability fix”—in this case, green investment in the city’s core—ultimately contributed to the demarcation of racialized poverty along 82nd Avenue, a major north–south arterial marking the boundary of East Portland. Our account of structural processes taking place at multiple scales contributes to a growing body of literature on eco-gentrification and displacement and inner-ring suburban change while empirically demonstrating how Portland’s advances in sustainability have come at the cost of East Portland’s devaluation. Our “30,000 foot” perspective reveals systemic patterns that might then guide more fine-grained analyses of particular political-socio-cultural processes, while providing cautionary insights into current efforts to extend the city’s sustainability initiatives using the same green development model.     

Identifying synergies and trade-offs in the sustainability–security nexus: the case of the Israeli–Palestinian wastewater treatment regime

ABSTRACT

The literature on environmental security often stresses the complementarity between sustainability and broader security goals. Less emphasis has been placed on possible trade-offs between security objectives and aspects of sustainability. This study examines the conditions under which these synergies and trade-offs are likely to occur, and how the trade-offs can be reconciled, especially during times of peacebuilding. As a case study, we analyse the effect of Israeli security concerns on environmental infrastructure designed to treat wastewater in the West Bank. This study identifies several sustainability–security trade-offs: (1) economic—in which security concerns raise costs of wastewater infrastructure, thereby crowding-out other potentially productive investments; (2) equity—in which security concerns result in disproportionate exposure of populations to environmental hazards; and (3) environmental—in which security concerns increase ecological footprints. Yet, our case study also indicates that both sides used a variety of creative measures to reconcile these trade-offs.

EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis GUEST EDITOR K. Aggestam     

黄河源区牧民观念更新的生计促进效应

以黄河源区为案例,选择人均纯收入、人均GDP、人均牛羊肉产量、人均奶产量作为刻画牧民生计的关键指标;选择载畜量(反映财富观念),牲畜出栏率、牲畜商品率(反映商品观念),适龄母畜比、成畜损亡率(反映科技观念)来刻画牧民思想观念,以此构建牧民生计和观念的关联模型.研究结果表明:1.牧民生计与牧民观念之间存在较为显著的非线性函数关系;2.从指标层次看,牲畜出栏率、牲畜商品率对牧民人均纯收入、人均肉产量均产生最强的增效作用;适龄母畜比例对人均GDP的作用效率最大;相反,载畜量对牧民人均纯收入具有最强的减效作用;3.牧民观念直接制约着牧民的生计水平.对此,从政策维度看,加强牧民思想意识的宣传教育,进一步强化技能培训,提高素质,革新传统的财富观念(崇尚牲畜拥有量越多越富)、破除陈旧的商品观念(抵制牲畜出栏和商品化)、树立先进的管理观念(着力结构调整和抗灾能力),对牧区持续发展具有迫切性,对牧民生计改进具有现实性.     

生态补偿对农户生计的影响——以甘南黄河水源补给区为例

生态补偿项目对农户生计的影响关系到项目可持续性及社会公平性,近年来已成为生态补偿领域的研究热点。本文通过调查退牧还草工程前后甘南黄河水源补给区农户生计资本及生计方式的变化,分析了生态补偿项目对农户生计的影响,提出应建立多样化、差别化的补偿方式,提高项目区农户的生计能力,确保生计安全。研究发现:①生态补偿后农户生计总资本显著增加,除自然资本下降外,其余各类生计资本均增加,但纯牧区、半农半牧区、农区农户的生计资本变幅不同;②生态补偿后农户生计方式发生显著变化,从事非农活动的农户比例增加,生计多样化指数增加,其中农区农户的非农化程度及生计多样化指数的增幅均高于纯牧区与半农半牧区。     

Time‐variant sustainability assessment of seismically vulnerable bridges subjected to multiple hazards

In the design and assessment of structures, the aspects regarding the future performance are gaining increased attention. A wide range of performance measures is covered by ‘sustainability’ to reflect these aspects. There is the need for well established methods for quantifying the metrics of sustainability. In this paper, a framework for assessing the time‐variant sustainability of bridges associated with multiple hazards considering the effects of structural deterioration is presented. The approach accounts for the effects of flood‐induced scour on seismic fragility. Sustainability is quantified in terms of its social, environmental, and economic metrics. These include the expected downtime and number of fatalities, expected energy waste and carbon dioxide emissions, and the expected loss. The proposed approach is illustrated on a reinforced concrete bridge. The effects of corrosion on reinforcement bars and concrete cover spalling are accounted. The seismic fragility curves at different points in time are obtained through nonlinear finite element analyses. The variation of the metrics of sustainability in time is presented. The effects of flood‐induced scour on both seismic fragility and metrics are also investigated. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

To Move or not to Move: Community Members’ Reaction to Surface Mining Activities in the Upper West Region of Ghana

Abstract

Despite the impact of mining-induced environmental change on community livability, we know little about how disparities in knowledge of health risks associated with mining influence residents’ response, especially in an already environmentally stressed context. Guided by theoretical insights from solastalgia, we examined residents’ decision to relocate due to increasing gold mining activities in the fragile Northern Savannah Ecological Zone of Ghana. Fitting complementary log-log regression models to cross-sectional data from the Upper West Region (UWR) of Ghana, we found that residents with limited knowledge of potential health impacts of mining and those who believe mining activities were not meeting environmental standards were more likely to consider relocating. Given the centrality of land in community health and wellbeing in the UWR, Ghana’s mining guidelines should promote local participation in the regulation of mining activities and guarantee the rights of indigenes to livable native lands.     

Imagining the Dirty Green City

ABSTRACT

The green city is being elevated to the status of a self-evident good in the theory and practice of urban sustainability. A large literature documents the linked environmental, economic and well-being benefits associated with vegetating urban systems to maximise the ecosystem function. Contemporary urban greening seeks to challenge attempts to expel nature from the city in a quest for order and control. However, by imagining nature as a new mode of urban purification, much effort in the name of the green city inverts and reproduces dualistic understandings of natural and built space. In response, we disrupt the normative dialectics of purity and dirt that sustain this dualism to expose the untidy but fertile ground of the green city. We draw together Ash Amin’s four registers of the Good City – relatedness, rights, repair and re-enchantment – with the artworks of the Australian visual ecologist Aviva Reed. Our work seeks to enrich the practice of more-than-human urbanism through ‘dirt thinking’ by imagining the transformative possibilities in, of and for the dirty green city.     

Mariculture development and livelihood diversification in the Philippines

This paper aims to evaluate mariculture as sustainable livelihood diversification option for coastal fishers in the Philippines and guide policy development in this direction. Mariculture in the Philippines refers to the culture of finfishes, shellfish, seaweeds and other commodities in cages, pens, stakes and rafts in marine environment. This paper evaluates the biophysical and socioeconomic contexts in which mariculture operate. Ten years after launching the first mariculture park organized and managed by the country's government fishery agency, and the nationwide promotion of this program, only 273 ha or 0.54% of the 50,150 ha total area planned for development has been established. Mariculture has not met its expected results due to a number of problems. This paper revisits the policies, organization, governance and administration of mariculture parks in the country. It also discusses the issues and challenges with mariculture as a livelihood diversification option within the context of ecosystems approach to fisheries management in the Philippines.