scholarly journals Regulating The Digital City: The Planning Challenges Of Airbnb

Author(s):  
Corinna Prior

This research paper investigates the impact that digital technological platforms are having on municipalities and the ways in which these practices can and are be incorporated into planning studies and regulatory frameworks. It uses the expansion of the short-term rental market as a case study, looking specifically at the Airbnb platform and its growth within the City of Toronto since 2011. Findings from the study indicate that municipalities need to explore the use of new digital tools like web scraping and advocating for APIs which allow for better data collection. Furthermore, the collection of data for municipal governance purposes is a practice that needs to be more clearly defined by either the provincial or federal governments. Interviews with key informants also suggest that there is a need to establish strong data agreement policies and to expand Information Technology departments to better equip municipalities to cope with technological change.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corinna Prior

This research paper investigates the impact that digital technological platforms are having on municipalities and the ways in which these practices can and are be incorporated into planning studies and regulatory frameworks. It uses the expansion of the short-term rental market as a case study, looking specifically at the Airbnb platform and its growth within the City of Toronto since 2011. Findings from the study indicate that municipalities need to explore the use of new digital tools like web scraping and advocating for APIs which allow for better data collection. Furthermore, the collection of data for municipal governance purposes is a practice that needs to be more clearly defined by either the provincial or federal governments. Interviews with key informants also suggest that there is a need to establish strong data agreement policies and to expand Information Technology departments to better equip municipalities to cope with technological change.


Erdkunde ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-204
Author(s):  
Marcus Hübscher ◽  
Juana Schulze ◽  
Felix zur Lage ◽  
Johannes Ringel

Short-term rentals such as Airbnb have become a persistent element of today’s urbanism around the globe. The impacts are manifold and differ depending on the context. In cities with a traditionally smaller accommodation market, the impacts might be particularly strong, as Airbnb contributes to ongoing touristification processes. Despite that, small and medium-sized cities have not been in the centre of research so far. This paper focuses on Santa Cruz de Tenerife as a medium-sized Spanish city. Although embedded in the touristic region of the Canary Islands, Santa Cruz is not a tourist city per se but still relies on touristification strategies. This paper aims to expand the knowledge of Airbnb’s spatial patterns in this type of city. The use of data collected from web scraping and geographic information systems (GIS) demonstrates that Airbnb has opened up new tourism markets outside of the centrally established tourist accommodations. It also shows that the price gap between Airbnb and the housing rental market is broadest in neighbourhoods that had not experienced tourism before Airbnb entered the market. In the centre the highest prices and the smallest units are identified, but two peripheral quarters stand out. Anaga Mountains, a natural and rural space, has the highest numbers of Airbnb listings per capita. Suroeste, a suburban quarter, shows the highest growth rates on the rental market, which implies a linkage between Airbnb and suburbanization processes.


Author(s):  
George S. Spais

The examination of the municipal broadband and building a “digital city” for a southwestern Greek city is the heart of this case study in terms of city’s repositioning through open innovation and creativity. The paradigm of the first successful Greek digital city (“e-Trikala”) shows to every Greek that the Digital City ICT applications can improve everyday life by simplifying public transactions in regional urban centers, reducing telecommunication costs, and by delivering new services related to the local way of life (Heeks, 2010). However, every SME has its own social, economic, geographic, or political characteristics (Foster & Heeks, 2010). For this reason, the digital city can vary from region to region, so that ICT applications enhance local characteristics rather than detract from them. The author’s objective is to create an independent case study that can be used as the basis for class discussion. The case of repositioning of Kalamata, a Greek southwestern city, as an open innovative and creative city through the new municipal broadband infrastructure presents a situation that requires the readers of this case study to develop and evaluate solutions. The case may be also meaningfully discussed, presented, or analyzed with reference to other cases. It can be used by itself without creating false impressions. In this case study, Kalamata’s municipal leadership believes that a short-term promotion campaign for the benefit of the city’s digitalization is enough to build a new image and personality for the city: the image and personality of an open, innovative, and creative city, an ideal location to visit, do business, and live. The development of a short-term promotion campaign in order to achieve the repositioning of a city is a major strategic pitfall. The municipal leaders must realize that transforming the city as an open innovative and creative city, needs a new philosophy. The achievement of such a strategic goal prerequires an overall transformation of all the protagonists (from citizens to municipal administrators to entrepreneurs) as the following strategic issues must be managed: the introduction of an open innovation model, the choice of an innovation scenario for the local economy, and the strategy in order to address the way of urban innovation through the municipal broadband infrastructure. However, the question remains whether transformative learning and building critical reflection are the paths for building a new image and personality for Kalamata as an open innovative and creative city.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Apgar

As destination of choice for many short-term study abroad programs, Berlin offers students of German language, culture and history a number of sites richly layered with significance. The complexities of these sites and the competing narratives that surround them are difficult for students to grasp in a condensed period of time. Using approaches from the spatial humanities, this article offers a case study for enhancing student learning through the creation of digital maps and itineraries in a campus-based course for subsequent use during a three-week program in Berlin. In particular, the concept of deep mapping is discussed as a means of augmenting understanding of the city and its history from a narrative across time to a narrative across the physical space of the city. As itineraries, these course-based projects were replicated on site. In moving from the digital environment to the urban landscape, this article concludes by noting meanings uncovered and narratives formed as we moved through the physical space of the city.


Author(s):  
Jorge Salgado ◽  
José Ramírez-Álvarez ◽  
Diego Mancheno

AbstractThe 16 April 2016 earthquake in Ecuador exposed the significant weaknesses concerning the methodological designs to compute—from an economic standpoint—the consequences of a natural hazard-related disaster for productive exchanges and the accumulation of capital in Ecuador. This study addressed one of these challenges with an innovative ex ante model to measure the partial and net short-term effects of a natural hazard-related catastrophe from an interregional perspective, with the 16 April 2016 earthquake serving as a case study. In general, the specified and estimated model follows the approach of the extended Miyazawa model, which endogenizes consumption demand in a standard input–output model with the subnational interrelations and resulting multipliers. Due to the country’s limitations in its regional account records the input–output matrices for each province of Ecuador had to be estimated, which then allowed transactions carried out between any two sectors within or outside a given province to be identified by means of the RAS method. The estimations provide evidence that the net short-term impact on the national accounts was not significant, and under some of the simulated scenarios, based on the official information with respect to earthquake management, the impact may even have had a positive effect on the growth of the national product during 2016.


2021 ◽  
Vol 263 (6) ◽  
pp. 206-214
Author(s):  
David Montes-González ◽  
Juan Miguel Barrigón-Morillas ◽  
Ana Cristina Bejarano-Quintas ◽  
Manuel Parejo-Pizarro ◽  
Guillermo Rey-Gozalo ◽  
...  

The pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) led to the need for drastic control measures around the world to reduce the impact on the health of the population. The confinement of people in their homes resulted in a significant reduction in human activity at every level (economic, social, industrial, etc.), which was reflected in a decrease in environmental pollution levels. Studying the evolution of parameters, such as the level of environmental noise caused by vehicle traffic in urban environments, makes it possible to assess the impact of this type of measure. This paper presents a case study of the acoustic situation in Cáceres (Spain) during the restriction period by means of long-term acoustic measurements at various points of the city.


Author(s):  
Jieling Xiao ◽  
Andrew Hilton

Square dancing is a popular music-related group physical exercise for health benefits in China mainly participated by mid-aged women and elderly people. This paper investigates the soundscape and enjoyment of the square dancing in urban streets through a case study in Lichuan, a county level city in southwest China, in December 2017. It examines the impact of gender, age, participation and places on perceptions of square dancing soundscape. Two sites along two main urban streets in the city were selected to conduct onsite investigations where residents spontaneously perform square dancing on a daily basis. Ethnographical observations were conducted to identify the social-physical features and sounds of both sites during the dance and without dance. Sound pressure measurements (LAeq and LAmax) were also conducted under the two conditions. An off-site survey was distributed through the local social media groups to understand residents’ everyday experiences and perceptions of square dancing in the city; 106 responses were received for the off-site survey. T-tests and Chi-squared tests were used for statistical analysis of the survey data. The results show gender does appear to be a factor influencing the regularity of participation in square dancing, with a bias towards more female participants. Participation frequency of square dance has an impact on the enjoyment of square dancing. There is no correlation between the dislike of watching square dancing, or dislike of the music and a desire to restrict locations for square dancing.


2008 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Edwards

There is a wide variety of universities, university campuses and university courses in Australia available to those interested in pursuing a higher education degree. This paper examines the impact of increasing competition for entrance to university on the educational outcomes for students from the government school sector. Using Melbourne as a case study, the research shows that, over a four-year period of increased competition, entry to some of the more academically accessible university campuses in the city became more difficult and this disproportionately affected the opportunities for university entrance among some groups. Despite the fact that there was no noticeable change in the academic standards achieved by government school completers, the rate at which government school students gained access to these universities declined noticeably during this time. These findings show how changes in supply of university places from year to year can have a profound effect on the opportunities of secondary-school completers—particularly those in more educationally disadvantaged settings.


2020 ◽  
pp. 177-192
Author(s):  
Iman Hegazy

Public spaces are defined as places that should be accessible to all inhabitants without restrictions. They are spaces not only for gathering, socializing and celebrating but also for initiating discussions, protesting and demonstrating. Thus, public spaces are intangible expressions of democracy—a topic that the paper tackles its viability within the context of Alexandria, case study Al-Qaed Ibrahim square. On the one hand, Al-Qaed Ibrahim square which is named after Al-Qaed Ibrahim mosque is a sacred element in the urban fabric; whereas on the other it represents a non-religious revolutionary symbol in the Alexandrian urban public sphere. This contradiction necessitates finding an approach to study the characteristic of this square/mosque within the Alexandrian context—that is to realize the impact of the socio-political events on the image of Al-Qaed Ibrahim square, and how it has transformed into a revolutionary urban symbol and yet into a no-public space. The research revolves around the hypothesis that the political events taking place in Egypt after January 25th, 2011, have directly affected the development of urban public spaces, especially in Alexandria. Therefore methodologically, the paper reviews the development of Al-Qaed Ibrahim square throughout the Egyptian socio-political changes, with a focus on the square’s urban and emotional contextual transformations. For this reason, the study adheres to two theories: the "city elements" by Kevin Lynch and "emotionalizing the urban" by Frank Eckardt. The aim is not only to study the mentioned public space but also to figure out the changes in people’s societal behaviour and emotion toward it. Through empowering public spaces, the paper calls the different Egyptian political and civic powers to recognize each other, regardless of their religious, ethnical or political affiliations. It is a step towards replacing the ongoing political conflicts, polarization, and suppression with societal reconciliation, coexistence, and democracy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-51
Author(s):  
Tatjana Savković ◽  
Pavle Gladović ◽  
Milica Miličić ◽  
Pavle Pitka ◽  
Dejan Koleška

The paper evaluates the impact of eco-driving programs on driving behavior. The study involved 4 professional truck drivers, which examined two operational driving prameters: fuel consumption and idling. Driving behavior was analyzed through three periods: pre-training period (P1), training period (P2), first month after training (P3) and second month after training (P4). Data were collected using Scania Fleet Management System. The results show that there was an improvement in the observed parameters in short-term. Namely, a decrease in fuel consumption and idling was achieved, in the periods P2, P3 and P4 in relation to the period P1. Due to the realized reductions of the observed parameters, costs in transport companies can be significantly reduced annually.


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