Cities in Developing Countries (CiDC)

This chapter addresses cities in developing countries that suffer from lack of economic resources and limited capabilities of the society. The chapter provides a definition of an economically productive city and the supports it needs from the national central government. Governance issues related to the local government are described, such as low citizen engagement, necessary legislative/regulatory changes, managing increasing citizen expectations, and community planning issues. It also touches on the issues of transparency and open government, operational inefficiencies, and ever-increasing urbanization movement. An important part of this chapter is touching on preparing for partial transformation and identifying opportunities and threats. It also provides guidelines for a general roadmap of actions that are based on planning a smart city, partnerships, and policies. Finally, transformation guidelines are discussed such as challenges for smart city transformation, alignment with national e-governance, capacity building, and change management.

Environmental Influences on the Settlements Patterns of Communities in the Marshes of Iraq

In the field of residential community planning, one of the appropriate places to study the mutual influences between man and the environment, away from the influences, concepts and mechanisms of contemporary planning theories are isolated environments in rural areas, and the marshlands in Iraq represent one of these models. These areas still retain the planning patterns of residential communities for thousands of years. This research attempts to conduct a descriptive study of traditional settlement patterns, which relied on the capabilities of the surrounding areas to provide planning and architectural solutions based on the environmental factor. Establishing such a clear framework for these impacts can help in any future interventions or development processes in the region and ensure that any random or irregular interventions that may have occurred previously are not repeated. Which will preserve the components and sustainability of this ecosystem and maintain the harmony and integration between the elements of the architectural environment and the natural elements.

Study of Rainwater Harvesting in University of Petroleum and Energy Studies in Support of the Eco-Campus Initiative

Rainwater harvesting is a technique for collecting rainwater that would otherwise be wasted, mainly in metropolitan settings. There is essentially no infiltration and percolation due to the completely different land use compared to the metropolitan region. As a result, groundwater levels have been steadily depleted. Rainwater harvesting is nearly completely unknown among the general public. There is a lack of community planning that may result in widespread participation and so replenish the groundwater table. The current research looks at several rainwater gathering techniques and how they may be implemented at the chosen location. The research is being conducted on the Dehradun campus of UPES. The focus is mostly on the water collected on the rooftop, which will be filtered and used for cleaning and gardening. Because it is a hilly location, the region receives a lot of rain, which provides excellent opportunities for rainwater gathering. The total runoff from the entire rooftop is calculated using a rational formula and then distributed to various uses. The paper's main goal is to advocate the wise use of this valuable resource while keeping in mind the economics of the method used. Keywords: Rainwater harvesting, rational formula, groundwater.

Geoinformation modeling of selection of territories for non-agricultural use

Possibilities of application of geoinformation modelling for the selection of land plots of non-agricultural purpose are considered. An analysis of the state of the study of issues related to the automation of decision support and the use of geographic information support for environmental issues. The use of geoinformation modelling for the selection of non-agricultural land plots is considered. This study describes the structuring of the general algorithm for establishing the necessary and impossible locations of objects and their limitations through a functional model. The functional model of site selection is generally common, i.e.: it is necessary to determine the desired location and exclude areas with restrictions, but for each object, it is necessary to set restrictions based on the environment. The article analyses the requirements for the selection of areas for two types of facilities: filling station and disposal tip. Geoinformation models of a selection of non-agricultural land plots for the placement of certain objects have been developed and implemented. As a result of this work, it is determined that the selection of land for the location of some non-agricultural facilities can use an algorithm that allows you to automate some stages of determining the territory. The results of the work can be used in community planning to form spatial decisions on the use of non-agricultural facilities.

Strategies of Improving the Efficiency of Allocating Parking Slots in Shudeli Community of Nanjing City

Due to the continuous growth of the amount of vehicles that households possess, the scarcity of easily accessible parking slots has gradually become a universal issue, especially in old communities that are usually lack of standardized administration. Thus, how to enhance the efficiency of arranging parking slots within limited public areas has become a concerned social issue in Chinese cities nowadays. As a zealous and supportive member of Shudeli community, the author tries to find the most suitable strategies of improving the efficiency of allocating parking slots here by learning from existing advanced community planning from both foreign and domestic researchers, while applying the knowledge of Economics and Business Management to obtain a final scheme which fits the local circumstances best.

Exploring Lifted Planning Encodings in Essence Prime

State-space planning is the de-facto search method of the automated planning community. Planning problems are typically expressed in the Planning Domain Definition Language (PDDL), where action and variable templates describe the sets of actions and variables that occur in the problem. Typically, a planner begins by generating the full set of instantiations of these templates, which in turn are used to derive useful heuristics that guide the search. Thanks to this success, there has been limited research in other directions. We explore a different approach, keeping the compact representation by directly reformulating the problem in PDDL into ESSENCE PRIME, a Constraint Programming language with support for distinct solving technologies including SAT and SMT. In particular, we explore two different encodings from PDDL to ESSENCE PRIME, how they represent action parameters, and their performance. The encodings are able to maintain the compactness of the PDDL representation, and while they differ slightly, they perform quite differently on various instances from the International Planning Competition.

Possibilities of Family Solidarity and Civic Participation of Actors in the Implementation of Social Services of Self-government

From our point of view, the need for community planning as one of the new possibilities for improving social services in self-government is extremely important. We see the importance and contribution of the planning process for the whole local policy in the active involvement of all citizens and participants in community planning. Only if the citizens are sufficiently informed and involved in the whole process not only community planning makes sense, but also establishing cooperation and creating a network of mutual assistance in the village.

Unsettling Ground: Arctic Urbanism on Fluid Geology

Ground is the transition across the surface and subsurface of the land, mediating environmental change and the stability of geological time. In the Canadian Arctic, dramatic seasonal cycles and warming trends are reshaping increasingly unstable ground. Inuit in communities such as Arviat, in southern Nunavut, have always dealt with geological instability using their traditional knowledge of climate and territory. However, the North has been aggressively shaped by systematic spatial interventions of resource-based economies, militarization, and administration. Federal building programs across the Territory have imposed visions of efficiency and modernity, transforming the land inhabited by Inuit into a settled ground. To “unsettle ground” is understood here as strategies to address gaps between the imposed stability and singularity of modernist, Northern master planning and housing and the richness and fluidity of the Indigenous landscape. Two trips to Arviat and extensive meetings with community members and housing advocates revealed numerous instabilities, including geological changes, adaptation of the Community Plan, and uncertain economics of public housing. Housing has failed to engage the land on a perfunctory technical level, in its ability to create a communal “social ground”, and on a larger scale the ongoing failure of community planning disregards community relationships to landscape. Conversations on the ground revealed community-centered building practices reclaiming spaces imposed by the strictures of modern colonial architecture and planning. Our research thus examines the multiple identities of ground and posits the possibility for new, respectful ways for architecture to inhabit the land in Nunavut while unsettling ground.

Speaking Out: Housing Issues of Youth in Nunavik

Conference retranscription “Living in Northern Quebec,” 1 special session “Arctic Housing and Community Planning”2 organized by Mylène Riva and Geneviève Vachon. Arctic Change 2017 Conference, Quebec City, Convention Centre, December 14th, 2017.