Post Covid-19 built environment: Architecture and town planning

2021 ◽  
pp. 64-69
Author(s):  
Ashish Verma ◽  
Sanan Verma
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
Town Planning ◽  
Built Environments ◽  
City Development ◽  
Existing Structures ◽  
Extreme Stress

Globally, at the end of July 2020, 16,301,735 positive cases of COVID-19, with 650,068 deaths, as shown by WHO. Such huge numbers are an indication of large scale devastation. Although there are numerous traditions of designing built environments in the world, the origins of all contemporary cities can be outlined to community scuffles in contradiction of the consequences of the industrialist city such as Fire, Pandemics, Disasters and Environmental Squalor etc. Inclusive city development with a healthy urban built environment emerged as a way to minimize these failures. Dense urban areas made population exposed to pandemic and disaster, but cities have also learned with time how to minimize threats. This could be in the arrangement of health and sanitary codes while designing, safety regulations, health sensitive public place planning, and environmental conservation. Cities are susceptible as we have deteriorated their capability to anticipate, prepare and respond to disasters and pandemics. They are susceptible, not because they are having high collective densities, but because they are extremely unfit for living settings, facilities, income and admittance. For designing the post-COVID-19 built environments, we need to evaluate the existing practices. The traditional land use and infrastructure expansion must produce a place for a more comprehensive design that prioritizes health, equity, employment and environment. Urban areas will have to be planned and designed to survive the effects of pandemics and calamities. Architects will have to reform existing structures to provide for more ventilation and natural light and reduce the use of air conditioners. Planners in practice and the state need to think about the integration of the health sector on a priority basis in upcoming city plans and development schemes. Builders will have to reconsider raising huge skyscrapers with respect to physical wellbeing. Any city plan will have to be inclusive with healthy accommodation for the poor, the weak and the migrant strata who are exposed to extreme stress during crisis time.

scholarly journals The Progressive Effects of Built Environments on Supporting Physical Activity Diversity in High-Density Areas: A Case Study in Shenzhen, China

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuan Gao ◽  
Kun Liu ◽  
Peiling Zhou ◽  
Hongkun Xie
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
High Density ◽  
Mental Condition ◽  
Built Environments ◽  
City Development ◽  
Healthy City ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Planning And Design ◽  
Urban Planning And Design

Abstract Background: Physical activity diversity (PAD) is an essential indicator to present the vitality of health city, and how to improve PAD from the built environment perspective is a key issue for healthy urban planning and design, especially in high-density cities; Methods: This study selected Shenzhen, China as a representative case, combined the diversity of PA participants, types and occurrence times for the comprehensive understanding of PAD, fully used multiple source data for the measurement and statistical analysis of PAD and built environments, to discover the relationships between the built environment and PAD, and to explore the different effects in clustered and sprawled high-density urban forms; Results: PAD was unevenly distributed in Shenzhen, higher in the clustered areas and lower in the sprawled ares and the effects of the built environment on PAD were significantly different between two kinds of areas; Conclusions: the built environment supports PAD by progressive effects, in which accessibility is the necessary and funda-mental condition to activate individual PAs, inclusiveness is sufficiently supports the coaction of various kind of PAs to consolidate PAD, and landscape attractiveness furtherly aggregates more PAs to achieve higher PAD. To create accessible, inclusive, and attractive built environments are crucial ways to improve the vitality of healthy city development in high-density cities.

scholarly journals Nocturnal city lighting elicits a macroscale response from an insect outbreak population

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elske K. Tielens ◽  
Paula M. Cimprich ◽  
Bonne A. Clark ◽  
Alisha M. DiPilla ◽  
Jeffrey F. Kelly ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Movement Ecology ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Insect Behaviour ◽  
Sensory Stimuli ◽  
Insect Populations

Anthropogenic environmental change affects organisms by exposing them to enhanced sensory stimuli that can elicit novel behavioural responses. A pervasive feature of the built environment is artificial nocturnal lighting, and brightly lit urban areas can influence organism abundance, distribution and community structure within proximate landscapes. In some cases, the attractive or disorienting effect of artificial light at night can draw animals into highly unfavourable habitats, acting as a macroscale attractive ecological sink. Despite their significance for animal ecology, identifying cases of these phenomena and determining their effective scales and the number of organisms impacted remains challenging. Using an integrated set of remote-sensing observations, we quantify the effect of a large-scale attractive sink on nocturnal flights of an outbreak insect population in Las Vegas, USA. At the peak of the outbreak, over 45 million grasshoppers took flight across the region, with the greatest numbers concentrating over high-intensity city lighting. Patterns of dusk ascent from vegetated habitat toward urban areas suggest a daily pull toward a time-varying nocturnal attractive sink. The strength of this attractor varies with grasshopper density. These observations provide the first macroscale characterization of the effects of nocturnal urban lighting on the behaviour of regional insect populations and demonstrate the link between insect perception of the built environment and resulting changes in spatial and movement ecology. As human-induced environmental change continues to affect insect populations, understanding the impacts of nocturnal light on insect behaviour and fitness will be vital to developing robust large-scale management and conservation strategies.

scholarly journals INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL ISSUE 1 : 2017

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana Mohammed Osman ◽  
Faris Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Community Development ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
Town Planning ◽  
The Other ◽  
Transportation Engineering ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Environmental Sciences ◽  
Future Studies

Sustainable Well-Being is broadly defined as the exploration of lasting happiness. It highlights the importance of a sustainable lifestyle that is environmentally friendly and socially advantageous. It requires us to pursue well-being in a much more holistic way and within the planetary boundaries.Towards the end of the last millennium, the word ‘sustainability’ was, and still is, the most used phrase with regards to all aspects of our livelihood, and even more so in the built environment field. This was when we understood that progress and environmental conservation are symbiotic – one is supposedly benefiting the other. Wellbeing, on the other hand, carries the notion of happiness, healthy and comfortable. Wellbeing has long been a much researched areas, although mainly in the sociological and psychological domains. Of late, it has increasingly becoming an important agenda in the built environment field as well.Acknowledging the importance of built environment in the pursuit of long lasting happiness, this issue of the Planning Malaysia Journal carries the theme of ‘Sustainable Well-Being in Architecture and Environmental Sciences’. This issue focuses on the design and building of living place which are harmonious and in sync with the environment needs and conservation.The contributions to the study of environmental sciences have come from diverse fields including architecture, town planning, transportation, engineering, legal matters, community development and psychology, and housing. Despite the diversity, each of the fields cannot be viewed as separate entities since they interweave in the broad framework of sustainable well-being. A broader yet explicit understanding of sustainable well-being from diverse research contexts would lead to better decisions, especially in the built environment designs and solutions.Finally, we believe that this issue of Planning Malaysia, can become the platform for experts and researchers to discuss on how sustainable well-being in the built environment can be realized. It is also hoped that the articles in this issue would be useful references for future studies related to the built environment and sustainable well-being.

Brighton Fair: The Life, Death, and Legacy of an Animal Suburb

2021 ◽  
pp. 009614422110181
Author(s):  
Andrew Robichaud
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Built Environments ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Many ◽  
American Cities ◽  
Social Landscapes ◽  
Insight Into

This paper explores the development and legacy of nineteenth-century “animal suburbs,” focusing on Boston and Brighton, Massachusetts. As domesticated animals were pushed from downtowns—and as large-scale animal industries emerged in the 1800s—urban areas grappled with what to do with livestock populations for urban consumers and markets. Animal suburbs like Brighton marked important developmental forms—marking key changes in human-animal relationships, and also in urban development, law, politics, and environmental change. These animal suburbs had distinctive built environments, ecologies, economies, and social landscapes that shaped development in the nineteenth century and in the many decades that followed. This paper explores the life and death of one animal suburb—Brighton—and shows the centrality of these marginal spaces in explaining why parts of American cities look the way they do today, while also providing insight into developments of nineteenth-century law, political development, and capitalism.

scholarly journals Impact of Culture on Rural Built Environment

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (10S) ◽  
pp. 78-84
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Future Generation ◽  
Transportation Systems ◽  
Rural Regions ◽  
The Common

The term “built environment” refers to the human made or modified physical surroundings in which people live, work and play. These places and spaces include our homes, communities, schools, workplaces, parks/recreations areas, business areas and transportation systems, and vary in size from large-scale urban areas to smaller rural developments. Based on human activities, the environment was created to obtain the basic needs of people. The regular human activities for many generations to prepare their needs are considered as culture. Hence based on culture, the environment was built and maintained for future generation. Regions are separated into two types based on production occurs in rural area and trading developed in urban. In olden days, most of the places are rural because of the undevelopment in transport system. The activities involved in preparing food, shelter and other needs are the common factors to build rural environment. Natural resources are the basic factor that decides the build environment and culture of human in rural regions. By analyzing the natural resources, the cultural impacts are determined based on building environment in rural areas

Engineering in the time of cholera: overcoming institutional and political challenges to rebuild Zimbabwe's water and sanitation infrastructure in the aftermath of the 2008 cholera epidemic

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clarissa Brocklehurst ◽  
Murtaza Malik ◽  
Kiwe Sebunya ◽  
Peter Salama
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Rapid Improvement ◽  
Cholera Epidemic ◽  
Rapid Action ◽  
Water And Sanitation Infrastructure ◽  
Urban Rehabilitation

A devastating cholera epidemic swept Zimbabwe in 2008, causing over 90,000 cases, and leaving more than 4,000 dead. The epidemic raged predominantly in urban areas, and the cause could be traced to the slow deterioration of Zimbabwe's water and sewerage utilities during the economic and political crisis that had gripped the country since the late 1990s. Rapid improvement was needed if the country was to avoid another cholera outbreak. In this context, donors, development agencies and government departments joined forces to work in a unique partnership, and to implement a programme of swift improvements that went beyond emergency humanitarian aid but did not require the time or massive investment associated with full-scale urban rehabilitation. The interventions ranged from supply of water treatment chemicals and sewer rods to advocacy and policy advice. The authors analyse the factors that made the programme effective and the challenges that partners faced. The case of Zimbabwe offers valuable lessons for other countries transitioning from emergency to development, and particularly those that need to take rapid action to upgrade failing urban systems. It illustrates that there is a ‘middle path’ between short-term humanitarian aid delivered in urban areas and large-scale urban rehabilitation, which can provide timely and highly effective results.

scholarly journals Simulating the effects of redesigned street-scale built environments on access/egress pedestrian flows to metro stations

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanan Liu ◽  
Dujuan Yang ◽  
Harry J. P. Timmermans ◽  
Bauke de Vries
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Route Choice ◽  
Local Area ◽  
Destination Choice ◽  
Built Environments ◽  
Renewal Processes ◽  
City Center ◽  
Metro Station ◽  
Route Choice Behavior ◽  
The City

AbstractIn urban renewal processes, metro line systems are widely used to accommodate the massive traffic needs and stimulate the redevelopment of the local area. The route choice of pedestrians, emanating from or going to the metro stations, is influenced by the street-scale built environment. Many renewal processes involve the improvement of the street-level built environment and thus influence pedestrian flows. To assess the effects of urban design on pedestrian flows, this article presents the results of a simulation model of pedestrian route choice behavior around Yingkoudao metro station in the city center of Tianjin, China. Simulated pedestrian flows based on 4 scenarios of changes in street-scale built environment characteristics are compared. Results indicate that the main streets are disproportionally more affected than smaller streets. The promotion of an intensified land use mix does not lead to a high increase in the number of pedestrians who choose the involved route when traveling from/to the metro station, assuming fixed destination choice.

scholarly journals Modeling Spatiotemporal Population Changes by Integrating DMSP-OLS and NPP-VIIRS Nighttime Light Data in Chongqing, China

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 284
Author(s):  
Dan Lu ◽  
Yahui Wang ◽  
Qingyuan Yang ◽  
Kangchuan Su ◽  
Haozhe Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Relative Error ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Population Distribution ◽  
Spatial Optimization ◽  
Distribution Data ◽  
Mountainous Areas ◽  
Mean Relative Error ◽  
Nighttime Light

The sustained growth of non-farm wages has led to large-scale migration of rural population to cities in China, especially in mountainous areas. It is of great significance to study the spatial and temporal pattern of population migration mentioned above for guiding population spatial optimization and the effective supply of public services in the mountainous areas. Here, we determined the spatiotemporal evolution of population in the Chongqing municipality of China from 2000–2018 by employing multi-period spatial distribution data, including nighttime light (NTL) data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (NPP-VIIRS). There was a power function relationship between the two datasets at the pixel scale, with a mean relative error of NTL integration of 8.19%, 4.78% less than achieved by a previous study at the provincial scale. The spatial simulations of population distribution achieved a mean relative error of 26.98%, improved the simulation accuracy for mountainous population by nearly 20% and confirmed the feasibility of this method in Chongqing. During the study period, the spatial distribution of Chongqing’s population has increased in the west and decreased in the east, while also increased in low-altitude areas and decreased in medium-high altitude areas. Population agglomeration was common in all of districts and counties and the population density of central urban areas and its surrounding areas significantly increased, while that of non-urban areas such as northeast Chongqing significantly decreased.

scholarly journals Decomposition of Water Footprint of Food Consumption in Typical East Chinese Cities

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 409
Author(s):  
Ruogu Huang ◽  
Xiangyang Li ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
Yaohao Tang ◽  
Jianyi Lin
Keyword(s):  
Food Consumption ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Water Footprint ◽  
Utilization Efficiency ◽  
Diet Shift ◽  
City Development ◽  
Intensity Effect ◽  
Consumption Level ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Per Capita

Water scarcity has put pressure on city development in China. With a particular focus on urban and rural effects, logarithmic mean Divisia index decomposition (LMDI) was used to analyze the water footprint per capita (WFP) of food consumption in five East China cities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Qingdao, and Xiamen) from 2008 to 2018. Results show that the WFP of food consumption exhibited an upward tendency among all cities during the research period. Food consumption structure contributed the most to the WFP growth, mainly due to urban and rural residents’ diet shift toward a livestock-rich style. Except in Beijing, the food consumption level mainly inhibited the WFP growth due to the decrease in food consumption level per capita in urban areas. Urbanization had less influence on WFP growth for two megacities (Beijing and Shanghai) due to the strictly controlled urban population inflow policy and more positive effects for other cities. The water footprint intensity effect among cities was mainly due to uneven water-saving efficiency. Meanwhile, Beijing and Tianjin have achieved advancement in water utilization efficiency.

The Economic Imperative: Cities Need Migrants

2021 ◽  
pp. 001946622110132
Author(s):  
Astha Agarwalla ◽  
Errol D’Souza
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Market Failure ◽  
Jel Classification ◽  
Industry Concentration ◽  
Wage Curve ◽  
Economic Agents ◽  
Reverse Migration ◽  
Local Labour

The policy responses to Covid-19 have triggered large-scale reverse migration from cities to rural areas in developing countries, exposing the vulnerability of migrants living precarious lives in cities, giving rise to debates asserting to migration as undesirable and favouring policy options to discourage the process. However, the very basis of spatial concentration and formation of cities is presence of agglomeration economies, benefits accruing to economic agents operating in cities. Presence of these agglomeration benefits in local labour markets manifests themselves in the form of an upward sloping wage curve in urban areas. We estimate the upward sloping wage curve for various size classes of cities in Indian economy and establish the presence of positive returns to occupation and industry concentration at urban locations. Controlling for worker-specific characteristics influencing wages, we establish that higher the share of an industry or an occupation in local employment as compared to national economy, the desirability of firms to pay higher wages increases. For casual labourers, occupational concentration results in higher wages. However, impact of industry concentration varies across sectors. Results supporting presence of upward sloping urban wage curve, therefore, endorse policies to correct the market failure in cities and promote migration as a desirable process. JEL Classification Codes: J2, R2

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