This book presents a compendium of the urban layout maps of 2-mile square downtown areas of more than one hundred cities in developed and developing countries-all drawn at the same scale using high-resolution satellite images of Google Maps. The book also presents analytic studies using metric geometrical, topological (or network), and fractal measures of these maps. These analytic studies identify ordinaries, extremes, similarities, and differences in these maps; investigate the scaling properties of these maps; and develop precise descriptive categories, types and indicators for multidimensional comparative studies of these maps. The findings of these studies indicate that many geometric relations of the urban layouts of downtown areas follow regular patterns; that despite social, economic, and cultural differences among cities, the geometric measures of downtown areas in cities of developed and developing countries do not show significant differences; and that the geometric possibilities of urban layouts are vastly greater than those that have been realized so far in our cities.

This book is about African and Asian cities. Illustrated through selected case cities, the book brings together a rich collection of papers by leading scholars and practitioners in Africa and Asia to offer empirical analysis and up-to-date discussions and assessments of the urban challenges and solutions for their cities. A number of key topics concerning housing, sustainable urban development and climate change in Africa and Asia are explored along with how policy interventions and partnerships deliver specific forms of urban development. It is intended for all who are interested in the state of the cities and urban development in Africa and Asia. Africa and Asia present, in many ways, useful lessons in dealing with the burgeoning urban population, and the problems surrounding this influx of people and climate change in the developing word.

Public transport in low-income Asian (LIA) cities fails to meet people's mobility needs, generates high greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and worsens social exclusion. Following successful Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) projects in Bogota and Curitiba, LIA countries promoted BRT in their large to medium-sized cities. However, the political and institutional structure distinctive to LIA cities makes their implementation difficult. This book investigates policy tensions by examining the planning and attempted implementation of BRT projects, taking Bandung and Surabaya in Indonesia as case studies. It analyses BRT to understand how power and communication gaps in institutional relationships between different actors at multiple levels of governance create conflict, and concludes that top-down policies and funding mechanisms cause tension in intergovernmental relationships. It also found that BRT solutions generated socio-political tension arising from the socio-economic realities and local political dynamics that shaped city structure, mobility patterns and capacity in resolving conflicts. The superimposed BRT solution generated discursive tension because conflicting discourses were not aligned with local economic, social, and environmental issues. The book highlights the need to take into consideration the vital role of local social and political actors, institutions and planning processes as they respond to and shape policies that are imposed by higher levels.

The housing market, like every market, is the product of thousands of interacting buyers and sellers driven by different interests. But unlike other markets, the housing market is able to profoundly transform the socioeconomic structure and the image of a city. Very often, changes in urban space are the result of the imperceptible operation of a multitude of micro-transformations which act with such great energy and decisiveness that they can transform the 'DNA' of entire urban neighborhoods. These qualitative novelties, unpredictable and non-deducible on the basis of the previous properties, are defined emergences. Namely emergence means a 'pattern formation' characterized by a self-organizing process driven by non-linear dynamics. This book explores housing market emergence in light of three different phenomena: search for housing, social polarization, and gentrification. The book is divided into two parts. The first part presents contributions on modelling emergence of different phenomena, formalised in multi-agent systems. The second part gathers empirical research and analyses aimed at supporting the findings of the models.

This book represents the collected works of Environmental and Resource Management (ERM) Alumni as well as young professionals and researches who are involved in the field of ERM. The connecting theme of these works is the successful implementation of ERM in a wide range of issues including: energy innovation and management, climate change response and sustainable development aspects of resource management in developing countries. This book aims to expose some of the research outputs of ERM Alumni and present perspectives and critical questions of ERM application. The research results can provide empirical bases on which ERM study programmes and/or working environments can be problematised in order to more effectively meet the objectives of ERM. The intended audience of this volume is wide including potential and current ERM students who want to understand how ERM is being applied; and teachers and researchers who want to understand the roles and interactions of ERM Alumni and their workplace.

The Reinvented City reflects on externity, the principal feature of a reinvented city. Three basic trends of the city are investigated; "discomposed," "generic" and "segregated" phenomena with the loss of the city as a space of social interaction and communication. Important questions are posed: What is the true public sphere in contemporary societies? What is the contemporary public space corresponding to it? In what way can the city project construct contemporary public space?

How can government stay linked to its citizens? Across the world, governments' basic principles are turned on their heads as global markets, weakened national states, and active citizens emerge. Governments increasingly act not alone, but many governments and private groups make policy jointly - labeled 'governance'. But this raises new concerns for adequate citizen responsiveness. Leaders and parties previously considered left or right make unexpected choices - as leaders explore Third Ways, New Political Cultures, and more. As policy choices grow more complicated, they are harder to present to citizens - which undermines citizen legitimacy of parties and elected officials.

How can government maintain democratic accountability? This volume explores new answers by probing citizen involvement in specific cities and countries the world over. There is no single problem, hence no single remedy. But by contrasting key elements of national and local contexts, this volume offers lessons about how citizens are variously activated; about what works, where, and why. From specific results emerge insights about how citizens may drive policy, or be ignored, in a time of turbulence and rapid cultural change for government policy making.

Placing the practice of urban design in its political, economic and cultural context, this book sets out a clear and positive vision of the potential of urban design, and in particular its capacity to bring imagined futures into being for the benefit of the many. Urban Design, Space and Society shows how urban design is concerned not only with the aesthetics and practicalities of designing urban spaces, but also with the pursuit of social inclusiveness, participatory democracy, cultural meaning and ecological sustainability. It covers a broad range of interrelated themes and demostrates how social and political theories shed light on an understanding of urban design. Drawing on these theories, as well as the author's own research, the book guides the reader through the complex challenges that design practitioners must navigate in meeting the diverse needs of urban society in the twenty-first century. Providing a clear guide to the role and potential of urban design, this is an invaluable text for students and professionals for urban design as well as those from related disciplines such as planning, architecture and geography.

In a knowledge economy urban form and functions are primarily shaped by global market forces rather than urban planning. As the role of knowledge in wealth creation becomes a critical issue in cities, urban administrations and planners need to discover new approaches to harness the considerable opportunities of abstract production for a global order. ""Creative Urban Regions"" explores the utilization of urban technology to support knowledge city initiatives, providing scholars and practitioners with essential fundamental techniques and processes for the successful integration of information technologies and urban production. Converging timely research on a multitude of cutting-edge urban information communication technology issues, this ""Premier Reference Source"" will make a valuable addition to every reference library.

This book assembles and organizes a selected range of methods and techniques that every planning practitioner should know to be successful in the contemporary global urban landscape. The book is unique because it links different aspects of the planning/policy-making enterprise with the appropriate methods and approaches, thus contextualizing the use of specific methods and techniques within a sociopolitical and ethical framework. This volume familiarizes readers with the diverse range of methods, techniques, and skills that must be applied at different scales in dynamic workplace environments where planning policies and programs are developed and implemented. This book is an invaluable resource in helping new entrants to the planning discourse and profession set aside their own disciplinary biases and empowering them to use their expert knowledge to address societal concerns.

Bad architecture. Soulless. Destructive of communities. The suburbs are much-maligned places. We see this time and again in films like American Beauty and novels like The Ice Storm. But are they really as homogenous and conservative as we think they are? In this wide-ranging comparative study of England and the United States, Mark Clapson offers new interpretations on suburbia. The majority of people in both countries now live in suburbs, largely as a result of the rising affluence of the postwar period. Millions of Americans pursued an aspiration to settle away from the poorer town and city centres in new subdivisions, while in England people were keen to leave terraced streets and poorer suburban housing areas. Examining housing policies, the politics of affluence and social class, Clapson challenges deeply held myths by demonstrating the complexity of suburban life. He shows how suburbs are becoming increasingly multicultural and compares the minority experience in both countries. He analyzes voting patterns to reveal some surprising political trends. In addition, he discusses gender and the experience of community life. Throughout, he uncovers the similarities and differences in the English and American experience of suburbanization in the twentieth century. This is a timely and original account that looks beyond the stereotypes of life in the 'burbs.

This book examines the practice of urban resilience past and present, drawing on deeper global historical sources and detailed case-studies of contemporary Britain. It argues that resilience is neither new nor necessarily about protecting ordinary people, but part of a long struggle over the control of cities.

Flood control in urban areas can be feasibly and cost-effectively enhanced by implementing flood proofing approaches to risk reduction in the context of environmental and land-use planning and management. Indeed, flood proofing makes it possible to improve, integrate and in some cases even replace traditional measures for flood control, reducing the vulnerability and increasing the resilience of buildings and infrastructures. This book begins by reviewing the physics of stability and instability of both human beings and buildings under flood conditions, together with criteria and models (both conventional and innovative) for assessing flood strains. In turn, it presents a range of flood proofing concepts and techniques, together with a complete and updated classification of related methods and devices. This provides a user-friendly tool to help identify appropriate solutions to real-world problems for each specific risk scenario. In particular, the book focuses on temporary flood proofing techniques, given their ability to deliver effective performance at low costs. Lastly, it features an overview of norms, guidelines and laboratory recommendations that are currently being adopted in various countries with regard to flood proofing devices and testing procedures. The purpose of this book is essentially to encourage authorities, stakeholders, technicians and end users to successfully develop flood proofing solutions that can reduce flood risk in a pragmatic manner. In addition, the authors hope to inspire researchers, manufacturers and designers (engineers, architects, urban planners and urban managers) to pursue further advances in this key sector of public and private safety in urban areas.

This book is about the role that ideas, institutions, and actors play in structuring how we govern cities and, more specifically, what projects or paths are taken. Global changes require that we rethink governance and urban policy, and that we do so through the dual lens of theory and practice.

This book provides a holistic perspective on Digital Twin (DT) technologies, and presents cutting-edge research in the field. It assesses the opportunities that DT can offer for smart cities, and covers the requirements for ensuring secure, safe and sustainable smart cities. Further, the book demonstrates that DT and its benefits with regard to: data visualisation, real-time data analytics, and learning leading to improved confidence in decision making; reasoning, monitoring and warning to support accurate diagnostics and prognostics; acting using edge control and what-if analysis; and connection with back-end business applications hold significant potential for applications in smart cities, by employing a wide range of sensory and data-acquisition systems in various parts of the urban infrastructure. The contributing authors reveal how and why DT technologies that are used for monitoring, visualising, diagnosing and predicting in real-time are vital to cities' sustainability and efficiency. The concepts outlined in the book represents a city together with all of its infrastructure elements, which communicate with each other in a complex manner. Moreover, securing Internet of Things (IoT) which is one of the key enablers of DT's is discussed in details and from various perspectives. The book offers an outstanding reference guide for practitioners and researchers in manufacturing, operations research and communications, who are considering digitising some of their assets and related services. It is also a valuable asset for graduate students and academics who are looking to identify research gaps and develop their own proposals for further research.

Planning in contemporary democratic states is often understood as a range of activities, from housing to urban design, regional development to economic planning. This volume sees planning differently-as the negotiation of possibilities that time offers space. It explores what kind of promise planning offers, how such a promise is made, and what happens to it through time. The authors, all leading anthropologists, examine the time and space, creativity and agency, authority and responsibility, and conflicting desires that plans attempt to control. They show how the many people involved with planning deal with the discrepancies between what is promised and what is done. The comparative essays offer insight into the expected and unexpected outcomes of planning (from visionary utopias to bureaucratic dystopia or something in-between), how the future is envisioned at the outset, and what actual work is done and how it affects people's lives.

'Trading zone' is a concept introduced by Peter Galison in his social scientific research on how scientists representing different sub-cultures and paradigms have been able to coordinate their interaction locally. In this book, Italian and Finnish planning researchers extend the use of the concept to different contexts of urban planning and management, where there is a need for new ideas and tools in managing the interaction of different stakeholders. The trading zone concept is approached as a tool in organizing local platforms and support systems for planning participation, knowledge production, decision making and local conflict management. In relation to the former theses of communicative planning theory that stress the ideals of consensus, mutual understanding and universal reason, the 'trading zone approach', outlined in this book, offers a different perspective. It focuses on the potentiality to coordinate locally the interaction of different stakeholders without requiring the deeper sharing of understandings, values and motives between them. Galison's commentary comes in the form of the book's final chapter.

Hans van Ginkel Rector, United Nations University The challenges of the world's future are linked to the growing share of the global population that will reside in urban areas. UN projections indicate that by 2030 the world's urban population share will rise to 60 percent. Of the two billion added to the global population, 99 percent will be added to the urban areas of the world. Of this number, 95 percent will be in countries of the developing world. As most people will live in urban areas we had better work to build and organize them as both attractive and less resource consuming places. That is, to promote sustainable urban development is to promote the creation of dense human settlements that are livable and have reduced their impacts on larger scale ecosystems. While much attention has been focused on the "mega-cities," those with a population of over 10 million, the amount of people living in these places will remain almost constant while the smaller and medium size cities will be the great absorbers of the world's urban population. Indeed, it is predicted that while the absolute number of people that will live in urban centers of 10 million or more will increase from approximately 263 to 375 million between 2000 and 20 IS, their share of the total urban population will only increase from 9. 2 percent to 9. 8 percent, a 6. 34 percent increase.

This study compares urban planning mechanisms that operate within Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. The political economy of Hong Kong is in a state of flux. While the power of the government and the corporate interests remain largely intact, they are challenged by pro-China interests and a democratizing civil society. The land use planning system reflects this power contest. In the face of both strong resistance from the development industry and China's eagerness to perpetuate a market-led society in post-1997 Hong Kong, the outcome of the power contest remains uncertain. The state-centred political economy of Singapore has bred a top-down land use planning system centrally controlled by the government. Not only has the government dominated the plan making process, the legislation has entrusted the public sector to scrutinize and guide private development through a discretionary development control system.

This book addresses the future of urbanisation on the Galapagos Islands from a systems, governance and design perspective with the competing parameters of liveability, economic and ecological, using the Galapagos as a laboratory for the theoretical and postulative understanding of evolving settlement and habitation. The Galapagos islands are one of the world's most examined and reported examples of a series of naturally evolving ecosystems. The biodiversity of these island ecosystems are the focus of tourism and the image across the world yet human settlement are part of the local ecology. While human intervention is limited, the islands are a distinctive context in which to consider the impact of human habitation as a part of our ecosystems. In this book, authors take the framework of complex adaptive systems (CAS) in which to model systems that grow and evolve, the relations between these various sectors change; systems that get more complex as they evolve. Tested and applied discretely in the two realms of natural and urban, for the first time this text will bring the two together in understanding options for the future of urban settlements on the Galapagos Islands and, by extension, consider how the approach can be used globally in other contexts.

This theoretically rooted and research-based book provides insights on the JESSICA funding model which - unlike the traditional non-repayable aid - focuses on supporting sustainable urban development projects in a repayable and recyclable way. Looking through the lens of the JESSICA financial engineering mechanism used in urban transformation, it examines the functioning and performance thereof and formulates policy recommendations for the future. The aim of this volume is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the JESSICA sustainable funding model by exploring its repayable assistance mechanism to support sustainable urban development projects. The authors make several noteworthy contributions to the literature on EU cohesion policy and shed light on the use of the repayable instruments within public interventions, while providing, for the first time, a critical analysis of the JESSICA sustainable funding model from the holistic perspective which is especially relevant for supporting sustainable urban development. Financial Engineering in Sustainable Funding of Urban Development in the EU provides policy-significant findings that are important for EU cohesion policy in the field of repayable assistance to be reinvested in the long term in urban and regional transformation.

Urban Transport Development is a contribution to the ongoing global discussion on the future of urban transport. The main themes are how to cope with the complexity of urban transport development and the process of change including its determining factors. The role of leadership in the development process is the key issue. Main areas of discussion are the historical background, the diversity and complexity of present problems, and the outcome of attempts to promote positive future development in urban environments around the world.

Historical, legal, political, and socio-economic insights into the causes, effects, and solutions to urban sprawl. Urban sprawl is an occurrence that has gained much attention in recent years. It is not only an issue of land use, but also a legal, political, and social concern. It affects schools, the environment, and race relations. Comprehensive enough for school students and also appropriate for undergraduate students, this book delves into the challenges of urban sprawl by looking to some of the top thinkers on the matter, including Robert Yaro, the President of the Regional Plan Association. Other cutting-edge articles include a preface about the emergence of sprawl by columnist Neal Peirce, views about race and class by former mayor of Albuquerque David Rusk, and views from Curtis Johnson, president of the Citistates Group, about transportation dynamics. After reading a detailed definition of urban sprawl, readers will then explore the dynamics, negative impact, analysis, other cross-cutting issues, and the agenda to deal with sprawl. Complete with a glossary, resources, and contact information for smart growth alliances, this book is extremely user-friendly. information accessible to students. With contributors being leading experts in their fields, it also provides clear, lucid, and information about the causes of sprawl and the efforts to reign it in.