An Assessment of Urban Vegetation Abundance in Accra Metropolitan Area, Ghana: A Geospatial Approach

Abstract The essential role played by urban vegetation in making urban areas livable is often overlooked in many developing cities. This is the case of Ghana where its capital, Accra is developing at the expense of urban vegetation. This study was conducted at the metropolitan area of Accra to estimate how the extent of vegetation cover has changed in the period of 1986-2013, using remote sensing satellite data from Landsat TM and ETM+. Furthermore, views of key informants were assessed on changes in the livability of the city of Accra which may be attributed to loss of urban green vegetation in the city. It was found that between 1986 and 2013, 42.53 km2 of vegetation was lost representing 64.6% of total vegetation in 1986. The rate of change in vegetation cover between 1986 and 1991 measured around 2.14% of the total land area annually. This however, reduced in the subsequent years measuring 0.26% between 2002 and 2008. Key informants interviewed, also believe that the loss of vegetation in the city creates livability concerns relating to ecosystem functioning, temperature rise and air quality. It is therefore recommended for urban planners and decision makers to address three critical concerns of resilience, sustainability and livability, which are the missing links in the city development agenda.

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Perancangan Kawasan Perkotaan Di Pulau Bali Sebagai Konektivitas Industri Pariwisata Yang Terintegrasi Pada Sistem ‘’Smart City Development’’

Jurnal Ilmiah Vastuwidya ◽

10.47532/jiv.v2i1.80 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 93-97

Author(s):

I Made Agus Mahendra

Keyword(s):

Smart City ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Spatial Vision ◽

Development Planning ◽

Tourism Industry ◽

City Development ◽

City Region ◽

Environmental Goals ◽

Almost All ◽

The City

City Development Planning can be described as a decision-making process to realize economic, social, cultural and environmental goals through the development of a spatial vision, strategies and plans, and the application of a set of policy principles, tools, institutional participatory mechanisms, and regulatory procedures. Connectivity between cities is needed for a Bali island which is the best tourism destination in Indonesia. Good connectivity between cities can contribute greatly to tourism destinations in each city / region. In the future it will be a great work if the development of urban areas on the island of Bali is the integrated tourism industry path connectivity in the Smart City Development system. Smart city is a dream of almost all countries in the world both in the provincial and urban spheres. With Smart City, various kinds of data and information located in every corner of the city can be collected through sensors installed in every corner of the city, analyzed with smart applications, then presented according to user needs through applications that can be accessed by various types of gadgets. Through the gadget, users can also interactively become data sources, they send information to data centers for consumption by other users.

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An automated classification system for urban areas matching the ‘city country fingers’ pattern: the cases of Kamakura (Japan) and Acireale (Italy) cities

Journal of Urban Ecology ◽

10.1093/jue/juab023 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Roberto Spina ◽

Emiliano Tramontana

Keyword(s):

Urban Area ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Agricultural Land ◽

Google Earth ◽

Classification Model ◽

Complete Analysis ◽

City Development ◽

Essential Condition ◽

Green Areas ◽

The City

Abstract The uncontrolled expansion of urban areas is one of the main factors that reduce the liveability of cities. In recent years, to contrast urban sprawl, several nations have promoted policies aimed at developing urban green spaces. The importance of green oases within cities had already been highlighted, in 1977, by the architect Christopher Alexander who had developed a series of patterns including ‘City Country Fingers’ claiming that city development should consider the prolongation of country land in to the urban area. In several cities, especially in Japan, it is possible to recognize the imprint of urban development based on country fingers. This term refers to extensive urban intersections of agricultural land or wooded hills which, from the peripheral areas, penetrate the city. Inside them, there are urban windows, called city fingers, whose development direction is opposite to those of the country fingers. To recognize and analyze, in an automated way, these particular structures, a Python-based application was created. Starting from the original high-resolution image of Google Earth, a complete analysis was performed, labeling and delimiting urban and vegetational areas and extrapolating the main geometric parameters of the country and city fingers. The finalization of the results obtained was carried out through a classification model whose criteria were based on Alexander’s pattern. Thanks to this classification scheme, the distinction between Active Green Areas (country fingers) and Passive Green Areas (gardens and public parks) have been revealed for the analyzed cities. The tests performed showed almost ideal conditions for the city of Kamakura and a limited match for the urban area of Acireale. The proposed method is suitable for fields of application that require a qualitative and quantitative determination of the vegetation cover present within the city, an essential condition for correct territorial planning.

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Formal and Informal Governance Arrangements to Boost Sustainable and Inclusive Rural-Urban Synergies: An Analysis of the Metropolitan Area of Styria

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su122410637 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (24) ◽

pp. 10637

Author(s):

Theresia Oedl-Wieser ◽

Kerstin Hausegger-Nestelberger ◽

Thomas Dax ◽

Lisa Bauchinger

Keyword(s):

Metropolitan Area ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Urban Areas ◽

City Region ◽

Informal Governance ◽

Governance Arrangement ◽

Ability To Act ◽

Uniform Region ◽

The City ◽

Governance Arrangements

In the past, the contrasts between rural and urban regions were the primary feature of analysis, while today, spatial dynamics are realized by the interactions between spaces and focus on the dependencies of rural-urban areas. This implies that boundaries are not anymore perceived as fixed but as flexible and fluid. With rising spatial interrelations, the concept of the “city-region” has been increasingly regarded as a meaningful concept for the implementation of development policies. Governance arrangements working at the rural-urban interface are often highly complex. They are characterized by horizontal and vertical coordination of numerous institutional public and private actors. In general, they provide opportunities to reap benefits and try to ameliorate negative outcomes but, due to asymmetric power relations, rural areas are often challenged to make their voice heard within city-region governance structures which can too easily become focused on the needs of the urban areas. This paper addresses these issues of rural-urban partnerships through the case of the Metropolitan Area of Styria. It presents analyses on the core issue of how to recognize the structure and driving challenges for regional co-operation and inter-communal collaboration in this city-region. Data were collected through workshops with regional stakeholders and interviews with mayors. Although the Metropolitan Area of Styria occupies an increased reference in policy discourses, the city-region has not grown to a uniform region and there are still major differences in terms of economic performance, the distribution of decision-making power, accessibility and development opportunities. If there should be established a stronger material and imagined cohesion in the city-region, it requires enhanced assistance for municipalities with less financial and personal resources, and tangible good practices of inter-municipal co-operation. The ability to act at a city-regional level depends highly on the commitment for co-operation in the formal and informal governance arrangement, and on the willingness for political compromises as well as on the formulation of common future goals.

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Global Changes in Urban Vegetation Cover

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs12010023 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 23 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Daniel R. Richards ◽

Richard N. Belcher

Keyword(s):

Vegetation Cover ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Well Being ◽

Google Earth ◽

Eastern North America ◽

Urban Vegetation ◽

Global Changes ◽

Suburban Sprawl ◽

The World ◽

Google Earth Engine

Urban vegetation provides many ecosystem services that make cities more liveable for people. As the world continues to urbanise, the vegetation cover in urban areas is changing rapidly. Here we use Google Earth Engine to map vegetation cover in all urban areas larger than 15 km2 in 2000 and 2015, which covered 390,000 km2 and 490,000 km2 respectively. In 2015, urban vegetation covered a substantial area, equivalent to the size of Belarus. Proportional vegetation cover was highly variable, and declined in most urban areas between 2000 and 2015. Declines in proportional vegetated cover were particularly common in the Global South. Conversely, proportional vegetation cover increased in some urban areas in eastern North America and parts of Europe. Most urban areas that increased in vegetation cover also increased in size, suggesting that the observed net increases were driven by the capture of rural ecosystems through low-density suburban sprawl. Far fewer urban areas achieved increases in vegetation cover while remaining similar in size, although this trend occurred in some regions with shrinking populations or economies. Maintaining and expanding urban vegetation cover alongside future urbanisation will be critical for the well-being of the five billion people expected to live in urban areas by 2030.

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Electoral behaviour in the Kraków metropolitan area: 1993–2011

Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series ◽

10.1515/bog-2017-0005 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 35 (35) ◽

pp. 65-80

Author(s):

Radosław Linkowski

Keyword(s):

Metropolitan Area ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Political Change ◽

The Political ◽

Voting Behaviour ◽

Economic Changes ◽

Parliamentary Elections ◽

Electoral Behaviour ◽

The City

Abstract The purpose of the paper is to describe changes in support for the four principal political options (‘right’, ‘left’, ‘liberal’, ‘peasant’) available in the Kraków Metropolitan Area (KMA) in parliamentary elections in the period 1993–2011. The electoral behaviour of the residents of the various KMA zones became increasingly similar in the study period. The political ‘distance’ between the northern commuter zone of the KMA (part of the Russian partition in the 19th c.) and the rest of the KMA, decreased significantly. The suburban zone of Kraków also changed over the course of the study period by becoming significantly similar to the city in terms of voting behaviour. This political change was largely due to substantial social and economic changes in the rural parts of the metropolitan area. Urban areas in the KMA were much more stable in their voting patterns and tended to politically resemble one another much more than rural areas. The city of Kraków and the southern part of its commuter zone – part of the Austrian partition in the 19th c. – were characterized by fewer fluctuations in voting behaviour than the two remaining parts of the KMA.

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SUSTAINABILITY LEVEL OF DENSELY POPULATED AREA: JATIMULYO URBAN COMMUNITIES, LOWOKWARU DISTRICT, MALANG CITY

Jurnal Tataloka ◽

10.14710/tataloka.21.4.718-726 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 718

Author(s):

S Haryani

Keyword(s):

Urban Communities ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Urban Spatial Structure ◽

City Development ◽

Large Cities ◽

Mixed Use ◽

Big City ◽

Calculation Results ◽

Population Urbanization ◽

The City

Large cities still peak the interests of some Indonesian society. Big city development as the center of economic activity is a powerful pull for society, influencing high workforce from both inside and outside of the city, causing a strong current of urbanization. One main problem that always accompanies urban areas development is density population. Urbanization has caused a very rapid explosion in the city population; one implication is the clumping workforce in large Indonesian cities. The high number of people who choose to settle in the city increase the number of both legal and illegal settlements. In the high-density settlement, many houses are not liveable and irregular. The densely populated settlements find many houses unfit for habitation and irregular. The research aims to formulate the sustainability level of Urban communities, Lowokwaru District, Malang City using quantitative method through sustainability level calculation. Jatimulyo Urban Communities is measured by the sustainability criteria of density, diversity, mixed-use, and compactness to formulate the related sustainable urban spatial structure. Interpretation of the calculation results references similar research. The calculation result shows that Jatimulyo Urban Communities is included in the moderate sustainability level, where density is moderate (101.1-200 people/ha), has a moderate building density (20-40 buildings/ha), has a random diversity level (1.0) and an entropy index (0.51), and compactness is near perfect inequality (Gini Coefficient 0.99).

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DETERMINING THE FEATURES OF AGE FRIENDLY FOR CITY DEVELOPMENT

PLANNING MALAYSIA JOURNAL ◽

10.21837/pm.v19i16.965 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 19 (16) ◽

Author(s):

Kushairi Rashid ◽

Thuraiya Mohamed ◽

Siti Noorhawa Azyze Ellah Azyze ◽

Zulkarnain Hazim ◽

Azhan Abdul Aziz ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

The Elderly ◽

Government Agencies ◽

Research Approach ◽

City Development ◽

Common Features ◽

City Environment ◽

Content Analyses ◽

The City ◽

Deductive Research

Malaysia is projected to become an aging nation in the year 2035. As a significant fraction of the elderly is anticipated to be residing in urban areas, therefore it is critically important for local and relevant government agencies to prepare the city environment for the increasing aging population. Age-friendly city is a concept emerged to address the urban aged population through various strategies. Although a significant number of studies were conducted on age-friendly cities, nevertheless, city features that are important to achieve the state of an age friendly city environment remain a subject for exploration. Therefore, this study primarily aims to document the development of the age-friendly features in various countries, in understanding common features that underlie its implementation. The research applies the deductive research approach that includes descriptive and content analyses. A total of 60 important features were commonly used across the report. The findings of the study provide significance as a key input for developing embedding age-friendly city development in Malaysia.

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Acoustic Zoning and Noise Assessment

Applied Mechanics and Materials ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.430.244 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 430 ◽

pp. 244-250 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Momir Praščevič ◽

Darko Mihajlov ◽

Dragan Cvetkovic ◽

Aleksandar Gajicki ◽

Nikola Holecek

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Noise Level ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Great Majority ◽

City Development ◽

Measurement Results ◽

The World ◽

Noise Assessment ◽

Sustainable Planning ◽

The City

The great majority of cities in the world have resolved problem of acoustic zoning in the urban part of the city. Two approaches are usually applied in acoustic zoning: acoustic zoning of the territory in accordance with land-use where the allowed values of noise indicator are defined and acoustic zoning by preparing noise maps around dominant sources of noise in urban areas and defining land-use in relation to calculated isofonic lines. As international standard and internationally recognized methodology for preparation of acoustic zoning does not exist, the authors of this paper initiated preparation of methodology for acoustic zoning. The concept of methodology is demonstrated in this paperwork. The methodology has been applied on the City of Nis example starting from the specificity of Nis urban area as well as requests and goals that have been set and defined during sustainable planning of Nis City development. Based on defined acoustic zones and noise measurement results for five years period on the territory of Nis City, the evaluation of the condition of noise level has been done and this paperwork presents results obtained.

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The Stable Connection to the Metropolitan Area of the Strait of Messina

Advanced Engineering Forum ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/aef.11.204 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 11 ◽

pp. 204-208 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Alessandro Rugolo

Keyword(s):

Economic Development ◽

Metropolitan Area ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Cultural Influences ◽

Information Flows ◽

Administrative Organization ◽

Definition Of ◽

The City ◽

Two Sides ◽

Stable Connection

The contemporary model of the city is linked to the dynamics of information flows and economic and cultural influences. Consequently, the traditional administrative organization has proved inadequate favoring the definition of a new model of governance of urban areas, able to administer the complexity. This characteristic is typical of the metropolitan city, which requires a new institutional framework is equipped with tools and infrastructure suitable to govern the phenomena of mobility, economic development and transformations in the regime of synergistic and integrated.The metropolitan system the Strait of Messina need for a stable connection that ensures the conurbation of the two sides.

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The Impact of the Relation Between Political Borders and Ecosystems in Creating Green Infrastructure Opportunities - the City of Prague

10.20944/preprints202012.0228.v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Jenan Hussein ◽

May Salama ◽

Peter Kumble ◽

Henry.W.A Hanson IV

Keyword(s):

Green Infrastructure ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Sustainable Use ◽

Ecological Sustainability ◽

City Development ◽

Economic Activities ◽

Job Opportunities ◽

Political Borders ◽

The Impact ◽

The City

Cities are small on earth’s surface but they are the most attractive places for people to live and work; cities are developing quickly, thus it’s important to keep it a better quality place to live as it has the major of the economic activities and more job opportunities and other social and economic advantages to be a more green and sustainable place. Seeking to achieve sustainable use of ecosystems and conserve natural resources in the city of Prague; integrating ecological sustainability goals, the political borders as a reflection of urban development in the city, and ecosystems edges in blue and green functions impact the city development, and present opportunities to create strategies for green and blue infrastructure and clarifying threats could slow down the process to achieve the sustainability and greenery application. Also checking possible urban areas for development like brownfields and clarifying their relationship with political borders and ecosystems to find possible areas to add for sustainable green use, which will create better places for people to live and raise the value of life as well.

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