Ecological Modeling in Urban Environments: Predicting Changes in Biodiversity in Response to Future Urban Development

2011 ◽  
pp. 359-370
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Hepinstall-Cymerman
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Ecological Modeling ◽  
Urban Environments

scholarly journals Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Urban Development

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 4964
Author(s):  
Ingo Kowarik ◽  
Leonie K. Fischer ◽  
Dave Kendal
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Sustainable Cities ◽  
Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Conservation Policies

Urbanization is a major driver of environmental change and is closely linked to the future of biodiversity. Cities can host a high richness of plants and animals, and this urban biodiversity supports multiple regulating, provisioning and cultural ecosystem services. Developing biodiversity-friendly cities is thus inextricably linked to sustainable urban development and human wellbeing. The contributions to this Special Issue on “Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Urban Development” in the journal Sustainability illustrate the role of urban environments as pressures on biodiversity, and envision pathways towards developing more biodiverse urban environments that are accepted and supported by people. Contributions reveal promising opportunities for conserving biodiversity within many urban landscapes. The insights from this Special Issue can support urban conservation policies and their implementation in the development of sustainable cities.

scholarly journals Connecting cities and their environments: Harnessing the water-energy-food nexus for sustainable urban development

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Chan
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Environmental Pressures ◽  
Metropolitan Regions ◽  
Economic Progress ◽  
Rural Environments ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThousands of years of development have made the production and consumption of water, energy, and food for urban environments more complex. While the rise of cities has fostered social and economic progress, the accompanying environmental pressures threaten to undermine these benefits. The compounding effects of climate change, habitat loss, pollution, overexploitation (in addition to financial constraints) make the individual management of these three vital resources incompatible with rapidly growing populations and resource-intensive lifestyles. Nexus thinking is a critical tool to capture opportunities for urban sustainability in both industrialised and developing cities. A nexus approach to water, energy, and food security recognises that conventional decisionmaking, strictly confined within distinct sectors, limits the sustainability of urban development. Important nexus considerations include the need to collaborate with a wide spectrum of stakeholders, and to “re-integrate” urban systems. This means recognising the opportunities coming from the interconnected nature of cities and metropolitan regions, including links with rural environments and wider biophysical dynamics.

scholarly journals Arqueologia Urbana: a cidade de Lagos como caso de Estudo

2020 ◽  
pp. 273-284
Author(s):  
Cátia Neto
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Regulatory Framework ◽  
Urban Archaeology ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
Rapid Pace ◽  
The City

Due to the rapid pace of urban development in many cities, urban archaeology tends to project itself, contributing to a new regulatory framework that requires this type of work in the historic centers, being necessary to adapt and develop methods to work in urban environments. One of the main problems, if not the main one, associated with urban archaeology is precisely the question of the rescue/preventive archaeology performed by archaeology companies being seen by many of the specialists as an impediment to the production of knowledge about the city and its history, so one will try to understand why Preventive Archaeology is seen as an impediment to the production of knowledge.

Ideas of the City in Asian Settings

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Complex Objects ◽  
Vast Array ◽  
Asian Cities ◽  
The City ◽  
Multiple Actors

At a time when intense dynamics of urban development of Asian cities puzzle and disorient, Ideas of the City in Asian Settings offers knowledge about the concepts, representations, and ideas that lie beneath the historical and contemporary production of cities in Asia, in order to deepen our understanding of the processes and meanings of urban development in the continent. The book sheds more light on the vast array of rules and innovations and aspirations that make cities into complex objects that are continuously ‘in the making’. Because Asian cities have experienced unprecedented dynamics of urban development during the last fifty years, they are considered as crucial places to question the perspectives that multiple actors project onto changing urban environments, as well as the evolution of the role of cities in globalisation.

“Actual Center of Detroit”: Method, Management, and Decentralization in Albert Kahn's General Motors Building

2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Abrahamson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Automotive Industry ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
General Motors ◽  
Corporate Management ◽  
Architectural Practice ◽  
The City

In the period 1919–22, two events catalyzed General Motors’ nascent dominance in the automotive industry: the company built a monumental headquarters in Detroit, designed by Albert Kahn Associates and located on what was then the periphery of the city; and a restructuring of the corporation was enacted at the behest of several newly appointed executives, including Alfred P. Sloan. In “Actual Center of Detroit”: Method, Management, and Decentralization in Albert Kahn's General Motors Building, Michael Abrahamson explores the conjunction between these events, arguing that both manifest a struggle with immense size. To cope with the bigness of buildings, corporations, and urban environments, GM and the Kahn firm developed strategies that set the agenda for architectural practice, corporate management, and urban development for the twentieth-century United States. Together, these strategies reveal the entwined forces that influenced the design of the General Motors Building.

scholarly journals Overcoming Systemic Barriers Preventing Healthy Urban Development in the UK: Main Findings from Interviewing Senior Decision-Makers During a 3-Year Planetary Health Pilot

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Black ◽  
Paul Pilkington ◽  
Ben Williams ◽  
Janet Ige ◽  
Emily Prestwood ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Economic Valuation ◽  
National Level ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Planetary Health ◽  
The Uk

AbstractThis paper sets out the main findings from two rounds of interviews with senior representatives from the UK’s urban development industry: the third and final phase of a 3-year pilot, Moving Health Upstream in Urban Development’ (UPSTREAM). The project had two primary aims: firstly, to attempt to value economically the health cost-benefits associated with the quality of urban environments and, secondly, to interview those in control of urban development in the UK in order to reveal the potential barriers to, and opportunities for, the creation of healthy urban environments, including their views on the use of economic valuation of (planetary) health outcomes. Much is known about the ‘downstream’ impact of urban environments on human and planetary health and about how to design and plan healthy towns and cities (‘midstream’), but we understand relatively little about how health can be factored in at key governance tipping points further ‘upstream’, particularly within dominant private sector areas of control (e.g. land, finance, delivery) at sub-national level. Our findings suggest that both public and private sector appeared well aware of the major health challenges posed by poor-quality urban environments. Yet they also recognized that health is not factored adequately into the urban planning process, and there was considerable support for greater use of non-market economic valuation to help improve decision-making. There was no silver bullet however: 110 barriers and 76 opportunities were identified across a highly complex range of systems, actors and processes, including many possible points of targeted intervention for economic valuation. Eight main themes were identified as key areas for discussion and future focus. This findings paper is the second of two on this phase of the project: the first sets out the rationale, approach and methodological lessons learned.

scholarly journals Learning and Teaching Interdisciplinary Skills in Sustainable Urban Development—The Case of Tampere University, Finland

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1180
Author(s):  
Jonathon Taylor ◽  
Salla Jokela ◽  
Markus Laine ◽  
Juho Rajaniemi ◽  
Pekka Jokinen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Social Sustainability ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
Challenging Environment ◽  
Pedagogic Practices

Developing the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of urban environments is challenging due to the complex and interconnected nature of the context and objectives. In order to be successful in this challenging environment, professionals working in the urban development arena should have a holistic understanding of the different pillars of sustainable development, as well as various competencies and skills. This paper looks at sustainable urban development (SUD) from the perspective of the skills and competencies required and identifies effective pedagogic practices that could help educate future professionals. In particular, we explore interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary learning, reflective thinking, and experiential learning, which are needed for understanding various aspects of a complex phenomenon, collaborating with professionals from different fields and coming up with novel and constructive ways of solving complex problems. We first examine these through reviewing and analyzing relevant literature on education for sustainable development, with a focus on SUD. Then, we explore the application of these approaches in practice by describing and analyzing a newly introduced degree program at Tampere University, Finland.

scholarly journals Developing a Label for Excellence in Design for Urban Sustainability

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Fabricio Ribas Chicca
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Environmental Assessment ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Rating Systems ◽  
Prototype Tool ◽  
Urban Models ◽  
The Impact

<p>The thesis investigates the impact caused by urban development on the environment. In addition, the thesis proposes and tests a methodology and a prototype tool for assessing the environmental performance of urban environments. The first section of the research briefly discusses some of the important environmental performance rating systems available on the market, such as USGBC-LEED, BREEAM, ISO 14000, NABERS and CASBEE. Their use for assessing urban developments is investigated critically. The thesis points out relevant flaws in the methods of these institutions, exposing a gap in knowledge of urban environmental assessment. The next step of the thesis begins by considering some historical societies and their urban models in order to understand how those making urban developments have approached the environment and its limitations. Indeed, the analysis of these historical models was based on selected speculative aspects, since confirmed by the investigation, as being essential for an ecologically balanced society. The thesis dedicates a chapter to describing the impact caused by the progressive monetarization of ancient society on the relationship between the urban environment and nature. The chapter introduces a discussion about how money has interfered with and speeded up the process of job specialization in urban areas, and how it has been shaping urban areas today. The thesis then reflects on important urban problems from an ecological point of view, pointing out relevant issues in modern urban development. Additionally, the research connects the problems of modern urbanism and the economics that have acted as a major force in shaping cities and their expansions. Finally the research proposes a methodology for environmental assessment, based on the ecological footprint. The prototype tool developed puts together all relevant environmental aspects. It also includes personal habits, combining these with urban design, transportation, consumption and energy resources to measure the footprint impact. The research recognises that the footprint cannot be treated as a static number; therefore, the research also presents a second instrument, which calculates the biocapacity per capita, according to population and economic growth, serving as a numerical ecological parameter for the first prototype tool. This enables the environmental impact of proposed changes, such as urban growth, to be assessed. A number of case studies using the tools are presented. These include three new urban developments which have a label for more sustainable urban design (LEED). The measurement prototype tool is also applied to some of the ancient societies previously studied, in order to compare the present urban and life style model with that of ancient urban societies. The thesis ends by comparing results from LEED for Neighbourhood Development with those of the new prototype tool, including comparison of modern and historical urban models.</p>

scholarly journals Planning and Restoration of Environmental Values in Nigeria Dysfunctional Societies

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 185
Author(s):  
J. O Basorun ◽  
D.A Ayeni
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Environmental Values ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Physical Planning ◽  
Extensive Review ◽  
Review Of Literature ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
High Level ◽  
Very High

Urban centers in Nigeria are becoming dysfunctional – a situation that threatens ourenvironmental values. This study, examines the pattern, process and problems of thesesocieties which experience rapid urban development pressure on account of highpopulation growth and decentralization of governance in the form of states and localgovernment creations. The study adopts extensive review of literature and findings revealthat Nigeria records very high level of urbanization and pollution, lacks effective culturaland physical planning policies, mismanages its urban open spaces, without adequatepersonnel to plan and organize the urban environments. Recommendations were madeon ways of restoring these environmental values through effective planning of urbancenters in Nigeria.

scholarly journals Embodied Urbanisms: Corruption and the Ecologies of Eating and Excreting in India's Real Estate Economies

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 708-732
Author(s):  
Namita Vijay Dharia
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Body Politics ◽  
National Capital Region ◽  
Production Chain ◽  
Investment Bankers ◽  
Development Politics ◽  
Metabolic Systems ◽  
National Capital

This article studies metabolic systems of food, body, and waste within the urban development politics of the city of Gurgaon (now Gurugram) in India’s National Capital Region. I link rapid urban transformation within the region, the labor required to produce it, and the speculative real estate economy that governs it to the phenomenology of body politics in the region. In particular, I examine corruption as both a political-economic and a physical, caste-based narrative to argue that corruption connects embodiment and urban development ecologies to each other. This allows corruption discourses in Gurgaon to form a critique of real estate economies; changing urban environments are felt and critiqued through body politics and experienced at once as a peril and a pleasure. This work is based on fifteen months of ethnographic research in the construction industry in NCR involving members across the production chain of real estate, including landowners, investment bankers, developers, engineers, architects, foremen, and laborers.

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