scholarly journals Designing Towards Ecological Environments: A Modular Approach to Structure a Design Studio Sequence

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oswald Jenewein ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Design Studio ◽  
Western World ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Environmental Threats ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

Architecture is a process that forms the physical background of every-day life. Both in academia and practice, a contemporary design studio must tackle ecological topics as architecture materializes itself within the rapidly changing natural environment. The premise for this paper are three timely challenges that the world is facing collectively in this stage of Post-Industrialization.First and foremost, the challenges arising from the Epoch of the Anthropocene. As the repercussions of climate change have started to materialize, the built environment needs to adapt to changing conditions, from sea-level-rise to extreme weather and cultural shifts, as climate migrants need to find new lands.Second, the challenges correlated with globalized economies and networks which have been a major force causing environmental threats and change. Capitalist democracies in the western world have developed complex logistical processes shipping commodities, goods, and thoughts around the world. These processes have shaped the (built) environment and life especially in urban areas. The relationship between the individual and the collective undergoes change as a consequence of how (political) regimes organize their economies and distribute wealth.Third, the challenges and opportunities digitalization offers to society. The dematerialization of (urban) landscapes through digital media enables the (re)distribution and access to information, education, and labor. Urban environments need to address these challenges as opportunities to create fairer and healthier places to live.These three challenges form the context of the studio modules presented here and link the contemporary discourse of architecture to a global cross-disciplinary discourse.

scholarly journals High Diversity in Urban Areas: How Comprehensive Sampling Reveals High Ant Species Richness within One of the Most Urbanized Regions of the World

Diversity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 358
Author(s):  
François Brassard ◽  
Chi-Man Leong ◽  
Hoi-Hou Chan ◽  
Benoit Guénard
Keyword(s):  
Exotic Species ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Dual Roles ◽  
Ant Communities ◽  
Continuous Increase ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
The World ◽  
Ant Diversity ◽  
The Vertical Distribution

The continuous increase in urbanization has been perceived as a major threat for biodiversity, particularly within tropical regions. Urban areas, however, may still provide opportunities for conservation. In this study focused on Macao (China), one of the most densely populated regions on Earth, we used a comprehensive approach, targeting all the vertical strata inhabited by ants, to document the diversity of both native and exotic species, and to produce an updated checklist. We then compared these results with 112 studies on urban ants to illustrate the dual roles of cities in sustaining ant diversity and supporting the spread of exotic species. Our study provides the first assessment on the vertical distribution of urban ant communities, allowing the detection of 55 new records in Macao, for a total of 155 ant species (11.5% being exotic); one of the highest species counts reported for a city globally. Overall, our results contrast with the dominant paradigm that urban landscapes have limited conservation value but supports the hypothesis that cities act as gateways for exotic species. Ultimately, we argue for a more comprehensive understanding of ants within cities around the world to understand native and exotic patterns of diversity.

scholarly journals The Most Homophobic Place on Earth? A Look Into the Anti-Homosexuality Culture of Jamaica

Perceptions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Effi Booth
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Western World ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
Degree Of Acceptance ◽  
Scholarly Data ◽  
The Individual

This paper was presented in History 3697, fall semester, 2017, a mid-level required writing course designed to link the methods of oral history with the study of issues in the contemporary history of the non-western world. The issue for all of us in this course was social change in recent times. I chose to examine the degree of acceptance of gays in Jamaica, in an era of great change in sexual mores throughout the world. I read the literature; I interviewed Julian, a recent immigrant from Jamaica, and I drew conclusions based on integrating the scholarly material with the interview revelations. The findings were important both for understanding (the lack of) change in sexual attitudes in Jamaica, and the importance of analysis of the individual and the collective together, of the interview and the scholarly data examined together. The individual, at least my interviewee, and the society, are currently resistant to change. The main conclusion: changes in sexual mores in other areas of the world are taking place at rates very different from, and, specifically in Jamaica, at rates much slower than, those in the USA.

The ecological and evolutionary consequences of systemic racism in urban environments

Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 369 (6510) ◽  
pp. eaay4497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Schell ◽  
Karen Dyson ◽  
Tracy L. Fuentes ◽  
Simone Des Roches ◽  
Nyeema C. Harris ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Ecology ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Systemic Racism ◽  
Emergent Structure ◽  
Patterns And Processes ◽  
Social Components ◽  
Evolutionary Consequences

Urban areas are dynamic ecological systems defined by interdependent biological, physical, and social components. The emergent structure and heterogeneity of urban landscapes drives biotic outcomes in these areas, and such spatial patterns are often attributed to the unequal stratification of wealth and power in human societies. Despite these patterns, few studies have effectively considered structural inequalities as drivers of ecological and evolutionary outcomes and have instead focused on indicator variables such as neighborhood wealth. In this analysis, we explicitly integrate ecology, evolution, and social processes to emphasize the relationships that bind social inequities—specifically racism—and biological change in urbanized landscapes. We draw on existing research to link racist practices, including residential segregation, to the heterogeneous patterns of flora and fauna observed by urban ecologists. In the future, urban ecology and evolution researchers must consider how systems of racial oppression affect the environmental factors that drive biological change in cities. Conceptual integration of the social and ecological sciences has amassed considerable scholarship in urban ecology over the past few decades, providing a solid foundation for incorporating environmental justice scholarship into urban ecological and evolutionary research. Such an undertaking is necessary to deconstruct urbanization’s biophysical patterns and processes, inform equitable and anti-racist initiatives promoting justice in urban conservation, and strengthen community resilience to global environmental change.

scholarly journals The Urban Wildlife Institute: Exploring Chicago's wildlife

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth Magle
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Monitoring Network ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Urban Wildlife ◽  
Educational Outreach ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Bird Populations ◽  
The People ◽  
New Information ◽  
The World

The Lincoln Park Zoo founded the Urban Wildlife Institute (UWI) in 2008, with the goal of conducting science to minimize conflict between humans and wildlife in cities around the world. UWI has since created a massive and unprecedented urban wildlife biodiversity monitoring network throughout the Chicagoland region. We will briefly summarize some of our findings on Chicago’s mammal, bat, arthropod, and bird populations, with special emphasis on our database of over 200,000 images of urban wildlife captured using motion-triggered cameras. Our research has not only uncovered new information about how urban animals select habitat and persist within urban landscapes, but has also helped connect the people of Chicago to the natural world through educational outreach and citizen science initiatives such as Partners in Fieldwork, and Chicago Wildlife Watch. UWI is working to ensure humans and wildlife can coexist in cities around the world, and also to remind growing urban populations that urban areas are ecosystems that are just as capable of inspiring wonder as the wildest jungles.

scholarly journals Global analysis of continental boundary layer new particle formation based on long-term measurements

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuomo Nieminen ◽  
Veli-Matti Kerminen ◽  
Tuukka Petäjä ◽  
Pasi P. Aalto ◽  
Mikhail Arshinov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Growth Rates ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Global Analysis ◽  
Formation Rate ◽  
Particle Formation ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
New Particle Formation ◽  
The World ◽  
Order Of Magnitude

Abstract. Atmospheric new particle formation (NPF) is an important phenomenon in terms of the global particle number concentrations. Here we investigated the frequency of NPF, formation rates of 10 nm particles and growth rates in the size range of 10–25 nm using at least one year of aerosol number size-distribution observations at 36 different locations around the world. The majority of these measurement sites are in the Northern Hemisphere. We found that the NPF frequency has a strong seasonal variability, taking place on about 30 % of the days in March–May and on about 10 % of the days in December–February. The median formation rate of 10 nm particles varies by about three orders of magnitude (0.01–10 cm−3 s−1) and the growth rate by about an order of magnitude (1–10 nm h−1). The smallest values of both formation and growth rates were observed at polar sites and the largest ones in urban environments or anthropogenically influenced rural sites. The correlation between the NPF event frequency and the particle formation and growth rate was at best moderate between the different measurement sites, as well as between the sites belonging to a certain environmental regime. For a better understanding of atmospheric NPF and its regional importance, we would need more observational data from different urban areas in practically all parts of the world, from additional remote and rural locations in Northern America, Asia and most of the Southern Hemisphere (especially Australia), from polar areas, and from at least a few locations over the oceans.

scholarly journals Sociological modeling of smart city with the implementation of UN sustainable development goals

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Kolesnichenko ◽  
Lev Mazelis ◽  
Alexander Sotnik ◽  
Dariya Yakovleva ◽  
Sergey Amelkin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Personal Space ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Data Governance ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic before mass vaccination can be restrained only by the limitation of contacts between people, which makes the digital economy a key condition for survival. More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and many cities have already transformed into “smart” digital/virtual hubs. Digital services ensure city life safe without an economy lockout and unemployment. Urban society strives to be safe, sustainable, well-being, and healthy. We set the task to construct a hybrid sociological and technological concept of a smart city with matched solutions, complementary to each other. Our modeling with the elaborated digital architectures and with the bionic solution for ensuring sufficient data governance showed that a smart city in comparison with the traditional city is tightly interconnected inside like a social “organism”. Society has entered a decisive decade during which the world will change by moving closer towards SDGs targets 2030 as well as by the transformation of cities and their digital infrastructures. It is important to recognize the large vector of sociological transformation as smart cities are just a transition phase to human-centered personal space or smart home. The “atomization” of the world urban population raises the gap problem in achieving SDGs because of different approaches to constructing digital architectures for smart cities or smart homes in countries. The strategy of creating smart cities should bring each citizen closer to SDGs at the individual level, laying in the personal space the principles of sustainable development and wellness of personality.

scholarly journals INTEGRATIONIST TRIADIC AGENDAS FOR CITY RESEARCH:CASES FROM RECENT URBAN STUDIES

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-157
Author(s):  
Ashraf M. Salama
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Western World ◽  
World Population ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Gulf Region ◽  
Housing Developments ◽  
Government Organizations ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Essential Components

With more than 60% of the world population living in urban areas, cities are becoming at the centre of attention in academic institutions and government organizations. However, there appears to be a continuous fragmentation in the types of knowledge developed where issues or concerns are always addressed in isolation and many factors critical to a comprehensive understanding of cities towards creating better urban environments are oversimplified at best or ignored at worst. Therefore, the thrust of this paper is to demonstrate the thought processes involved in instigating frameworks, raising questions, and establishing objectives for responsive city research. It aims to present two triadic agendas that untangle the essential components of city research; the first is the Lefebvrian triadic conception on the production of space and the second is the triadic perspective of lifestyles theories for understanding housing developments, typologies, and choices. Contextually, while the theoretical underpinnings of these agendas are developed based on a body of knowledge generated in the context of the Western world, their conceptualisation is adapted to grasp and examine key unique particularities of selected emerging (and globalised) Arab cities in the Gulf region. Calling for the need for a trans-disciplinary thinking paradigm for city research, the two agendas adopt an integrationist approach that is amenable to understanding the urban realities of these cities.

Urban Health

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Urban Health ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Full Understanding ◽  
Urban Populations ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Current State ◽  
Global Population ◽  
Do So

Urban health is the study of the health of urban populations. More than half the world’s population is now living in urban areas, and two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities by 2030. This means that characteristics of cities—including, for example, features of the built environment—are shared by a large proportion of the global population. These characteristics ultimately shape how most of us think, feel, and behave; they shape what we eat and drink; and, inevitably, they shape our health. The ubiquity of urban exposures suggests that a full understanding of the features of urban environments that affect health—and how they do so—can unlock the potential for approaches to prevent disease, promote health, and make a substantial impact on the health of urban populations. Studying urban health therefore requires an appreciation both of the urban exposures themselves and the approaches that can inform scholarship in the field. This book combines these with case studies that illuminate the progression of health in cities, aiming to capture the current state of the field while also pushing the field, through holding a mirror to itself, to consider its next decade.

Towards the Development of Quality of Life Indicators in the ‘Digital’ City

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimo Craglia ◽  
Lila Leontidou ◽  
Giampaolo Nuvolati ◽  
Jürgen Schweikart
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Information Society ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Digital City ◽  
Quality Of Life Indicators

Cities are central to the economic and social development of European society, not only because over 80% of European citizens live in urban areas, but also because cities are at the same time centres of production, innovation, employment, and culture, and loci of segregation, deprivation, and ethnic conflict. The emergence of a European-wide urban policy, has given new impetus to the need for comparable indicators of the quality of life to monitor development and policy implementation. This paper reviews the literature on quality of life indicators, and argues that traditional measures of the quality of life need to be supplemented with two new dimensions that reflect more recent postmodernist thinking about the composition of urban landscapes, and the contribution to the quality of life of the emerging information society. We argue that the challenges of building appropriate indicators reflecting these new dimensions are considerable, even in urban environments so rich in information systems and data sources, if they are to qualify as ‘digital cities’. There are difficulties in finding common workable definitions of the indicators themselves, as well as definitions of the relevant populations, including city residents, and users. By raising these issues and suggesting possible avenues for addressing these challenges we contribute to a much-needed debate on how to define such indicators, which is the prerequisite for their development and use.

The Egalitarian Waltz

1973 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 368-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Katz
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Western World ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Social Dancing ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Historian ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Looking Back

One need not be an anthropologist or a cultural historian to remark that social dancing these days seems to isolate the individual in a trance-like self-absorption which virtually disconnects him from the world and even from his partner. Indeed, the dance of the day—like other art forms—is often a good reflection of the values of a given time and place. Today's developments, both in the dance and in society, provide more than the usual scholarly justification for looking back to one of the earliest manifestations of individualism and escape in the dance and its association with the values of liberty, equality and uncertainty which followed upon the French Revolution. The dance was the waltz; the dancers, at first, were the middle classes, soon to be joined by both upper and lower classes; the time and place are Central Europe, and soon the whole Western world, at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

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