scholarly journals STREET TRADE AND THE ATTAINMENT OF URBAN RESILIENCE AND ADAPTATION IN LAGOS, NIGERIA

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Ademola Omoegon

Rapid urbanization rates and the proliferation of informal activities in vulnerable locations present significant challenges to urban resilience and adaptation, particularly in cities seeking to reduce poverty and improve economic growth. Inclusive urban governance has been identified as being vital to building resilience. Informal employment is the life blood of African cities, as evidenced by the multitude of street traders which abound in urban areas. However, in recent times many city authorities in Africa have adopted neo-liberal development policies which have led to the sanitization of public space and displacement of street traders, as well as a consequent worsening of the already precarious working conditions of traders and a significant damage of their limited associational structure, thus reducing their capacity to participate in urban governance. Through a case study of Lagos, Nigeria which possesses the largest informal economy in Africa, this paper examines the challenges which associations of the working poor face and the effect of this on urban resilience efforts. By exploring the experiences of street traders, the paper aims to investigate their current forms of organisation, their role in urban governance and how these factors can enhance or hinder urban resilience and adaptation. Keywords: Street trade, urban resilience, informal economy, urban governance, Lagos

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
Xi LUO ◽  
Xiaozhen XU

Under the background of China's rapid urbanization, the informal economy in urban areas has become the rational choice of the action subject under the institutional constraints. The root cause is the insufficient supply of the action subject's rights in urban governance. Rural immigrants lack urban identity and their original identity suffers from identity crisis. Urban rights to share the fruits of urban development are suspended. Urban informal economy has gradually become an important object of urban governance. Adopting inclusive governance policies has become an inevitable choice for urban governments. From the perspective of Shared development, the future approach of urban governments to inclusive governance of urban informal economy lies in eliminating policy bias, reshaping competition and cooperation relations among government and market and implementing equalization of urban public services.


2019 ◽  
pp. 145-164
Author(s):  
Shuxiang Cai

Compared with the gradual and long exploration processes typical of European and American countries, China experienced a period marked by extremely high-speed modernisation and urbanisation, following the Land Reform. This is exemplified by a great number of urban reconstruction projects which have changed the traditional fabric of most cities. Yet, following the trend of cultural consumption since the late 1990s, numerous integrated restoration projects for historic districts were implemented to promote tourism as a promising industry to sustain economic growth. As a consequence of growth-oriented urban entrepreneurship, public spaces in these historic urban areas have also been perceptibly privatised. To a large extent, the capital and the authority of the local government directs the future prospect of the historic urban landscape in Chinese cities. On the other hand, development-oriented urban construction stimulates a rise in awareness of the need for protection strategies to conserve historic urban fabric. On a global scale, the public sector has begun to introspect on urban governance under the spirit of entrepreneurship. The urban renewal has now been extended to urban regeneration and the previous public-private partnership has been substituted with a multi-sectoral cooperative model. In recent years, the Chinese central government has proposed the core concept of “Seeing people, Seeing things, Seeing life”, which is re-orientated towards historic-city regeneration as a way of promoting “Micro-renewal and Micro-disturbance”. Among such activities, the use of exhibitions as a strategy for simultaneous spatial transformation and activation has gradually formed a common path, encouraging many cities to regenerate historic urban areas. This article is based on on this reorientation, taking Quanzhou as an example, making a critical observation on the new form of public space it has produced, and digs into the operational mechanism behind it as well as the possibility for publicness.


2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 01027 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jawoto Sih Setyono ◽  
Wiwandari Handayani ◽  
Iwan Rudiarto ◽  
Landung Esariti

Rapid urbanization in developing countries has brought some unprecedented consequences in economic, social, and most notably environmental aspects. Many cities have to be dealing with the challenges of vulnerability as the risk of disasters increases. In responding to the challenges, the concept of urban resilience has been applied as an important part of the current development policies in many countries. In Indonesia, the current spatial policy framework has underlined the importance of integrating vulnerability and environmental carrying capacity into spatial planning document. However, attention has been mostly given to metropolitan or large urban areas. This policy imbalance has put aside the problems faced by smaller urban areas or small cities, although the growing importance of small urban areas or cities is widely understood. In fact, the problems faced by small cities are not less important compared to that of large cities or metropolitan regions, especially those which are in coastal regions. This research aims at analysing how the development and planning of small cities in coastal areas considers the resilience concept. This research applied qualitative methods based on content analysis of planning documents and secondary data. This study selected Lasem, a small urban area in eastern coastal region of Central Java with some 50,000 population, as a case. This research found that the current spatial policy framework is lacking in integrating vulnerability and resilience dimension in the policy and development processes. The research recommended some key important factors to be integrated in the future urban development model.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Appolloni ◽  
Corazza ◽  
D’Alessandro

The Walking Suitability Index of the Territory–T-WSI is an innovative methodology to assess walkability. Unlike other methods and tools in this field designed to evaluate walkability on given origin-destination paths, T-WSI is conceived for area-wide assessments, typically at the neighborhood level. This can be achieved by visual surveys to collect data, which are easy to perform at street level, their further process via an algorithm, and their aggregation to assess the walking performance levels of the test area. The paper describes such methodology, which includes the development of 12 indicators associated with four main evaluation categories (Practicability, Safety, Urbanity and Appeal), and its application to a case study in a medium-size town in central Italy. Results are described and elaborated to highlight T-WSI’s contribution to help decision makers in the urban governance process, typically in the fields of land use, mobility management and maintenance, coherently with the research objective to enlarge the potential of walkability methodologies thus far available up to area-level assessment.


1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 806-842 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Haberkorn

Melanesia's urban population tripled from a mere 7 percent of the region's total population in 1955 to 20 percent by 1985. The recency and magnitude of this development and the absence of any established forms of urban living in the region's precolonial history virtually rules out natural population growth as the principal cause behind this process of rapid urbanization and suggests massive internal population mobility as the most likely cause. The overall picture conveyed by the Melanesian mobility literature, however, emphasizes rural-based circular mobility as the predominant form of population mobility in the region. Seeking to reconcile this contrast, this article argues that much of the alleged continued predominance of circular mobility owes more to its underlying operationalizations, ways of measurement, and theoretical conceptualizations than reflects contemporary reality. This argument is substantiated by an analysis of recent developments in Vanuatu mobility set in the local and historical conditions of migration from the island of Paama. It is demonstrated how specific structural transformations on the island and in urban areas throughout this century were not only conducive to a change from temporary to long-term or permanent rural absences, but how they also have emerged as the direct result of mobility, thus highlighting the latter's dialectical nature. Evidence for this mobility change is derived from a comparative analysis of lifetime mobility histories of urban and rural Paamese men and women.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shenggen Fan ◽  
Emily EunYoung Cho ◽  
Christopher Rue

Purpose The paper is a synthesis of the 2017 Global Food Policy Report, and the purpose of this paper is to put into perspective the major food policy issues, developments, and decisions of 2016 and highlights challenges and opportunities for 2017. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents an overview of recent changes in the global context for food security and nutrition, and synthesizes research findings on major issues that arise in an urbanizing world. Based on its findings, the authors present policy recommendations and areas for future research for food security and nutrition. Findings Urbanization is linked with dietary changes to more energy-dense diets, and, the triple burden of malnutrition is increasing, particularly in rapidly urbanizing developing countries. Rural-urban linkages are key to improving food security and nutrition in both rural and urban areas, and traditional agricultural value chains linking farms to cities are undergoing a “quiet revolution.” Governance to enhance food security in the context of rapid urbanization faces various challenges in the institutional, administrative, and political realms, especially for the informal economy in developing countries. To address the unique challenges of urbanization, policies will need to create enabling environments, promote efficient and inclusive value chains, improve governance, and promote tailored programs. Research gaps that need to be filled include better, updated, and disaggregated data on food security and nutrition, as well as an enhanced understanding of enabling environments. Originality/value The paper highlights the increasingly relevant issue of rapid urbanization, especially in developing countries, for food security and nutrition, and synthesizes recent research in this area.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Silva

Strengthening urban resilience is key to achieving Oxfam's vision of a world without poverty. Urbanization has become a major challenge for almost all countries around the globe. Cities and city inhabitants are facing additional and amplified challenges as a result of rapid urbanization, a changing climate and rising inequality in urban areas. The COVID-19 crisis has further highlighted the importance of strengthening inclusive urban resilience to acute shocks and chronic stresses. Oxfam's Resilience Knowledge Hub conducted the Urban Resilience Learning Exchange (URLE) project with pilot programmes in Jordan, Pakistan, Nepal, South Africa, Kenya and Bangladesh to develop a better understanding of what it takes to build resilience in urban settings. This paper summarizes the learning from the pilots and looks at how Oxfam can further strengthen its urban resilience programming.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duy Do ◽  
Suguru Mori ◽  
Rie Nomura

One of the most insoluble problems confronted by urban areas in developing countries is the shortage of open space; street space allows daily human activities, promotes social interaction, and is seen as a precondition for the sustainable development of the community. Although some seemingly public space is also built up in Vietnam, street space is often where resident’s go to perform activities. This research aims at studying behaviors of users in old street space and the interaction with existing physical settings; as an input to future renovation and the development of street space in a manner that respects the cultural and social context of the Vietnamese people. User’s behaviors in streets and physical characteristics of space were collected and processed in accordance with theories of behavior setting and proxemics using some methods including place-centered behavioral mapping (PcBM) and visual encounter surveys (VES). The analysis showed that three types of behavior, including (1) Type A where various frequent activities occurred, (2) Type B which discouraged most human activities, and (3) Type C where neither frequent nor infrequent behaviors can represent environmental behavior patterns in the old street spaces of Vietnam and for each of these types of patterns improvements have been proposed by organizing street and pavements layouts detailed in this paper. The proposed improvements are based on the relationship between human behaviors and properties of the street space to assist designers, administers, and authorities in renovating and developing better and more sustainable street space.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1305
Author(s):  
Xinghua Feng ◽  
Chunliang Xiu ◽  
Jianxin Li ◽  
Yexi Zhong

Resilience is a new path to express and enhance urban sustainability. Cities suffer from natural shocks and human-made disturbances due to rapid urbanization and global climate change. The construction of an urban resilient developmental environment is restricted by these factors. Strengthening the comprehensive evaluation of resilience is conducive to identifying high-risk areas in cities, guiding regional risk prevention, and providing a scientific basis for differentiated strategies for urban resilience governance. For this study, taking Shenyang city as a case study, the resilience index system was constructed as an ECP (“exposure”, “connectedness”, and “potential”) framework, and the adaptive cycle model was introduced into the resilience assessment framework. This model not only comprehensively considers the relationship between exposure and potential but also helps to focus on the temporal and spatial dynamics of urban resilience. The results show that the exposed indicators have experienced three spatial evolution stages, including single-center circle expansion, multicenter clustering, and multicenter expansion. The potential index increased radially from the downtown area to the outer suburbs, and the low-value area presented a multicenter pattern. The spatial agglomeration of connectivity indicators gradually weakened. The results reflect the fact that the resilience level of the downtown area has been improved and the resilience of the outer expansion area has declined due to urban construction. The multicenter cluster pattern is conducive to the balance of resilience levels. In terms of the adaptive cycle phases of urban resilience, the first ring has gone through three phases: exploitation (r), conservation (K), and release (Ω). The second and third rings have gradually shifted from the exploitation (r) phase to the conservation (K) phase. The fourth ring has entered the exploitation (r) phase from the reorganization (ɑ) phase. The fifth ring and its surrounding areas are in the reorganization (ɑ) phase. The results provide specific spatial guidance for implementing resilient urban planning and realizing sustainable urban development.


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