scholarly journals Coproduction of place and knowledge for ecology with the city

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steward T. A. Pickett ◽  
Mary L. Cadenasso ◽  
Anne M. Rademacher

AbstractEcology with the city is a transdisciplinary pursuit, combining the work of researchers, policy makers, managers, and residents to advance equity and sustainability. This undertaking may be facilitated by understanding the parallels in two kinds of coproduction. First, is how urban systems themselves are places that are jointly constituted or coproduced by biophysical and social processes. Second, is how sustainable planning and policies also join human concerns with biophysical structures and processes. Seeking connections between coproduction of place and the coproduction of knowledge may help improve how urban ecology engages with diverse communities and urban interests in service of sustainability.

Ciudades ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Frederick R. Steiner

This panoramic view shows how are focused today the relationships between Nature and the City by research scholars and practitioners in North America. In the American context of an “endless city”, it develops four key ideas for a better approach to urban ecosystems: urban ecology, sustainability, new regionalism and landscape urbanism. Urban ecology has emerged as an interdisciplinary approach for understanding the “drivers, patterns, processes, and outcomes” associated with urban and urbanizing landscapes. With the leadership of several American cities, as New York City, Chicago, Seattle and Portland, urban greening efforts based on principles of sustainability are developed. The new perspectives on regionalism are evident in different efforts associated with the megaregion/megapolitan concept: a new geographic unit of analysis and a new scale for planning. This new regionalism represents a movement led by architects and planners involving geographers, demographers, and policy makers. Finally, landscape urbanism is a more design-based approach. Instead of viewing nature in the city, we have begun to understand the ecology of cities: the urban systems are ecosystems. As a result, “nature cannot be used as exterior decoration, but rather as integral to the health and resiliency of human settlement”.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (March 2018) ◽  
Author(s):  
S.A Okanlawon ◽  
O.O Odunjo ◽  
S.A Olaniyan

This study examined Residents’ evaluation of turning transport infrastructure (road) to spaces for holding social ceremonies in the indigenous residential zone of Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria. Upon stratifying the city into the three identifiable zones, the core, otherwise known as the indigenous residential zone was isolated for study. Of the twenty (20) political wards in the two local government areas of the town, fifteen (15) wards that were located in the indigenous zone constituted the study area. Respondents were selected along one out of every three (33.3%) of the Trunk — C (local) roads being the one mostly used for the purpose in the study area. The respondents were the residents, commercial motorists, commercial motorcyclists, and celebrants. Six hundred and forty-two (642) copies of questionnaire were administered and harvested on the spot. The Mean Analysis generated from the respondents’ rating of twelve perceived hazards listed in the questionnaire were then used to determine respondents’ most highly rated perceived consequences of the practice. These were noisy environment, Blockage of drainage by waste, and Endangering the life of the sick on the way to hospital; the most highly rated reasons why the practice came into being; and level of acceptability of the practice which was found to be very unacceptable in the study area. Policy makers should therefore focus their attention on strict enforcement of the law prohibiting the practice in order to ensure more cordial relationship among the citizenry, seeing citizens’ unacceptability of the practice in the study area.


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75
Author(s):  
Ying Long ◽  
Jianting Zhao

This paper examines how mass ridership data can help describe cities from the bikers' perspective. We explore the possibility of using the data to reveal general bikeability patterns in 202 major Chinese cities. This process is conducted by constructing a bikeability rating system, the Mobike Riding Index (MRI), to measure bikeability in terms of usage frequency and the built environment. We first investigated mass ridership data and relevant supporting data; we then established the MRI framework and calculated MRI scores accordingly. This study finds that people tend to ride shared bikes at speeds close to 10 km/h for an average distance of 2 km roughly three times a day. The MRI results show that at the street level, the weekday and weekend MRI distributions are analogous, with an average score of 49.8 (range 0–100). At the township level, high-scoring townships are those close to the city centre; at the city level, the MRI is unevenly distributed, with high-MRI cities along the southern coastline or in the middle inland area. These patterns have policy implications for urban planners and policy-makers. This is the first and largest-scale study to incorporate mobile bike-share data into bikeability measurements, thus laying the groundwork for further research.


2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 953-956 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne M Boddy ◽  
Allan F Hackett ◽  
Gareth Stratton

AbstractObjectiveTo estimate the prevalence of underweight between 1998 and 2006 in Liverpool schoolchildren aged 9–10 years using recently published underweight cut-off points.Design and settingStature and body mass data collected at the LiverpoolSportsLinx project’s fitness testing sessions were used to calculate BMI.SubjectsData were available on 26 782 (n13 637 boys, 13 145 girls) participants.ResultsOverall underweight declined in boys from 10·3 % in 1998–1999 to 6·9 % in 2005–2006, and all sub-classifications of underweight declined, in particular grade 3 underweight, with the most recent prevalence being 0·1 %. In girls, the prevalence of underweight declined from 10·8 % in 1998–1999 to 7·5 % in 2005–2006. The prevalence of all grades of underweight was higher in girls than in boys. Underweight showed a fluctuating pattern across all grades over time for boys and girls, and overall prevalence in 2005–2006 represents over 200 children across the city.ConclusionsUnderweight may have reduced slightly from baseline, but remains a substantial problem in Liverpool, with the prevalence of overall underweight being relatively similar to the prevalence of obesity. The present study highlights the requirement for policy makers and funders to consider both ends of the body mass spectrum when fixing priorities in child health.


Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802110140
Author(s):  
Sarah Barns

This commentary interrogates what it means for routine urban behaviours to now be replicating themselves computationally. The emergence of autonomous or artificial intelligence points to the powerful role of big data in the city, as increasingly powerful computational models are now capable of replicating and reproducing existing spatial patterns and activities. I discuss these emergent urban systems of learned or trained intelligence as being at once radical and routine. Just as the material and behavioural conditions that give rise to urban big data demand attention, so do the generative design principles of data-driven models of urban behaviour, as they are increasingly put to use in the production of replicable, autonomous urban futures.


2016 ◽  
Vol 664 (1) ◽  
pp. 221-235
Author(s):  
Wendy S. Still

This article offers a practitioner’s perspective on California’s criminal justice Realignment. Drawing on my direct experience implementing Realignment as the chief probation officer in the city and county of San Francisco, I argue that the San Francisco case illustrates how decarceration can occur without compromising public safety, and I offer a set of lessons for practitioners and policy-makers about how to achieve decarceration despite local political, organizational, and cultural barriers. Specifically, I identify interagency collaboration, investment in community corrections and a commitment to alternatives to incarceration and community engagement with the families of both victims and offenders as key facilitators of decarceration at the local level. I urge observers not to dismiss these lessons as idiosyncratic to San Francisco’s unique locale. Rather, my experience has been that even San Francisco’s exceptionally hospitable local culture is not enough to successfully implement reform; structural arrangements that institutionalize the practical implementation of cultural commitments to reduce reliance on incarceration are required.


Author(s):  
Nadezhda V. Dulina ◽  
◽  
Evgeniya V. Anufrieva ◽  

In order to study the feminization process of the Russian city, the article compares statistical data on a number of indicators for 2015 and 2019–2020. In the course of the analysis an asymmetry in the urban population is revealed: (there are more women than men). It is shown how the ratio of women to men in employment has changed during the study period. As well the article defines those areas in which women lead. The authors outline a range of works studying the feminization phenomenon in social processes, including the feminization of the city. The results of the work made it possible to conclude that the feminization of the Russian city is one of the processes in the space of a today Russian city that have a positive dynamics


Author(s):  
Sabine Werth

Founded in 1993 by four women in Berlin, Germany, the Berliner Tafel is Germany’s oldest food rescue organization. The Tafel concept was quickly replicated and eventually developed into a nationwide network. Today, the Berliner Tafel has approximately 1,800 volunteers who tirelessly work to collect surplus food and deliver it to those in need throughout the city. The organization supplies over 300 social initiatives ranging from homeless shelters to soup kitchens and operates 45 food distribution points, Laib und Seele, in partnership with churches and the regional radio and television network. The Berliner Tafel supports more than 125,000 people in need every month with quality food that would otherwise have been unnecessarily thrown away. After the organization’s primary mission of rescuing food had adequately matured, the decision was taken to branch out and impact the lives of the children and youth of Berlin by establishing the KIMBA programme, which aims to teach young people from all backgrounds the value of food, good nutrition and the importance of sharing a meal together. Through all these activities the Berliner Tafel bolsters the fabric of German society by supporting vulnerable citizens while simultaneously having a positive impact on the environment and encouraging solidarity within and among Berlin’s diverse communities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 1248-1269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nufar Avni ◽  
Nurit Alfasi

Research on studentification has unpacked the spatial, economic, and social impacts that are associated with the growing presence of students in cities. Nonetheless, considerably less attention has been paid to the broader regional and national contexts that shape studentification. Using the case study of Ben–Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, we argue that the studentification of the city should be understood within its context as the periphery of the country. Despite the university's central location and its involvement in revitalization efforts in the region, Ben–Gurion University is surrounded by marginalized neighborhoods which have turned into a “student bubble”. We show that the segregation between the campus and the city results from a vicious cycle that reproduces the city's poor image and disrupts the university's attempts to advance the city and region. Although overlooked by policy–makers, the implications of this cycle reach far beyond the campus' surrounding and affect the city and to some extent the whole region.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 331-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fahad Fahimullah ◽  
Yi Geng ◽  
Bradley Hardy ◽  
Daniel Muhammad ◽  
Jeffrey Wilkins

The District of Columbia will increase its minimum wage to $15 per hour in 2020. The city also provides a local refundable earned income tax credit (EITC) equal to 40% of the federal EITC. Using a computable general equilibrium model, the authors estimate the economic impact of the $15 wage policy. They also use a tax policy microsimulation model to estimate how the city’s EITC interacts with a higher minimum wage. Overall, the authors find that the higher minimum wage will produce significant income gains for most of the city’s low-wage workers, with relatively few job losses. Additionally, they forecast that most city EITC recipients will receive a lower EITC, but higher earnings more than offset the reduced tax credit. The model predicts that this policy change would largely be funded by higher consumer prices, lower firm profits, and higher business productivity. These predictions are subject to important caveats, including a local labor market that is likely inadequately characterized in a model assuming perfect competition. Economic policy makers should therefore use such modeling approaches as a powerful but ultimately imperfect tool.


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