Smart City Response During Pandemic Times

With the presence of additional risks in life such as health problems and pandemics, the concept of a small city becomes very much entangled within an official dilemma. This chapter is specially written to address smart cities' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reconnecting Religion and Community in a Small City: How Urban Amenities Afford Religious Amenities

Recently, sociologists of religion have argued that rather than treating geographical location as a mere backdrop against which religion happens, scholars ought to theorize how place characteristics influence, and are shaped by, religion. In particular, they focus on urbanicity, a key variable in the secularization debate. Drawing on interviews with 50 Catholic and non-Catholic residents of a small city just outside of Washington, D.C. along with participant observation data, I argue that one way to examine how urbanicity—and space and place more generally—matters for religion is to identify its affordances, or features of an environment that allow for certain lines of action. Specifically, I show how urban amenities can afford the creation of religious amenities that support religious practice. I also demonstrate how the concepts of affordances and amenities can be used to theorize place characteristics, and their relationship with religion, more systematically.

Educational Labour Market of Town's Institutions

The trends of the state's educational policy are reflected in the set of state educational services and the social educational order. In a small town, educational institutions have the largest range of educational services. The purpose of the study is to consider the peculiarities of the formation of the market of educational services of a small city and the analysis of the factors that influence this. The results of the study, based on regulatory documents, observations and questionnaires of consumers of educational services, allow us to conclude about the problems in the field of maintenance and provision of educational services by small-town institutions, to identify in-demand educational services.

“Move backward to make a step forward”: Understanding the migration of the highly educated to Sorong City, West Papua, Indonesia

Highly educated people are mainly concentrated in big cities or metropolitan areas. However, some of them choose to move to less developed regions. Using information from in-depth interviews of 15 highly educated migrants that recently moved to Sorong City, a small city in easternmost Indonesia, this study examines the narratives behind their spatial movements. The findings show that promising career development is a critical factor in their migration decision-making process. Although most of them faced difficulties with the limited living amenities in Sorong city, the migrants managed to improve their employability and accelerate their social mobility. However, some migrants expressed their intentions to remigrate from the city in the future. This situation indicates the lack of migrants’ social integration and the challenges in the human capital accumulation in the region.

GDP Forecast of Jinan and Hefei based on LSTM and the Transformation Enlightenment of Old Industrial City Jinan

Jinan City, Shandong Province, is one of the important cities in modern industrial production and development in China. It plays an important role in the industrial history of modern China and has a very rich industrial cultural heritage. Hefei City, Anhui Province, from a small city, through reform and innovation, has become a rising star of Chinese cities, with per capita GDP approaching Jinan. In this paper, the single variable time series prediction model based on LSTM is used to fit the Area GDP of Jinan and Hefei in 31 years from 1990 to 2020, and the Area GDP data of the two cities in the next three years is predicted. Finally, combined with the development of foreign old industrial cities, this paper puts forward some suggestions for the future development of Jinan.

Islamic Universalism or Ethno-nationalism? Exploring identity salience within a Kurdish migrant community in Britain

This article examines identity salience among members of a Kurdish Muslim migrant community in England. The study, in contrast to previous research on the Kurdish diaspora, focuses on religious identity in a small-city context, with recently arrived migrants, predominately from Iraqi Kurdistan. In-depth interviews highlight how ethnic repression within sending nations results in greater politicisation of ethnicity and in turn salience over all other identities, even within a non-Muslim setting. As such, findings did not demonstrate growing salience of religious identity over ethno-national identities, in order to close ranks with other Muslim minorities in a local context, as described in literature on ‘Islamic diasporas’. Abstract in Kurmanji Gerdûnparêziya îslamî ya netewparêziya nijadî ? Vekolîna girîngiya nasnameyî di civateke Kurdên koçber li Brîtanyayê de Ev nivîsar girîngiya nasnameyî ya li nav endamên civateke Kurdên misilman ên koçber li Inglîstanê vedikole. Li berevajiyê lêkolînên bihorî yên li ser diyasporaya kurd, ev vekolîn li ser nasnameya dînî ya koçberên nûhatî, pirraniya wan ji Kurdistana Êraqê ve, di çarçoveya bajarokeke piçûk de radiweste. Hevdîtinên hûrgilî bal dikişînin ser polîtîzebûna bêhtir a ku bi encama zordestiya nijadî li neteweyên birêkêr pêk hat û, li ser vê, girîngiya meztir a nasnameya nijadî li ber hemû nasnameyên din, heta di hawirdoreke ne-misilman de jî. Weha, van encam hane girîngiya zêde ya nasnameya olî li hember nasnameyên nijadî-neteweyî nîşan nedaye, li berevajiyê destbiratiya herêmî ya bi kêmneteweyên misilman ên din re ku di edebiyata li ser ‘diyasporayên misilman’ de tê dîtin. Abstract in Sorani Îslamî cîhanî yan nasêwnallîzmî êtnî? Lêkollîneweyek le ser giringî nasnamey êtnî le nêwan komellêk koçberî kurd le le Berîtanya Em wutare şirovey giringî nasnamey êtnî le nêwan endamanî komellêk koçberî musullmanî kurd dekat le Berîtaniya. Twêjîneweke be pêçewaney twêjînewekanî pêştir le ser rewendî kurd le tarawge, tîşk dexate ser nasnamey ayinî le nêw koçberî tazegeyştû le Kurdistanî ‘Êraqewe,‌ le çwarçêwey‌ şarêkî biçûkda. Çawpêkewtinî dûrxayan derîxistwe ke çawsanewey êtnî le wllatî koçkirdinewe debête hoy besiyasîbûnî nasnamey êtnî û zallbûnî be ser nasnamekanîtir da, tenanet le nêwendî namusullmanekanîş da. Le ber ewe encamekan zallî nasnamey ayinî be ser nasnamey êtnî dernaxen bo nizîkbûnewe le gell kamayetiy musullmanekanîtir le nêwendî nawxoda, wek leserçawekanîtir le ser musllmananî ‌tarawge baskrawn. Abstract in Zazaki Îslamî cîhanî yan nasêwnallîzmî êtnî? Lêkollîneweyek le ser giringî nasnamey êtnî le nêwan komellêk koçberî kurd le le Berîtanya Em wutare şirovey giringî nasnamey êtnî le nêwan endamanî komellêk koçberî musullmanî kurd dekat le Berîtaniya. Twêjîneweke be pêçewaney twêjînewekanî pêştir le ser rewendî kurd le tarawge, tîşk dexate ser nasnamey ayinî le nêw koçberî tazegeyştû le Kurdistanî ‘Êraqewe,‌ le çwarçêwey‌ şarêkî biçûkda. Çawpêkewtinî dûrxayan derîxistwe ke çawsanewey êtnî le wllatî koçkirdinewe debête hoy besiyasîbûnî nasnamey êtnî û zallbûnî be ser nasnamekanîtir da, tenanet le nêwendî namusullmanekanîş da. Le ber ewe encamekan zallî nasnamey ayinî be ser nasnamey êtnî dernaxen bo nizîkbûnewe le gell kamayetiy musullmanekanîtir le nêwendî nawxoda, wek leserçawekanîtir le ser musllmananî ‌tarawge baskrawn.

Are PM2.5 in the Atmosphere of a Small City a Threat for Health?

A number of time series from two local PM2.5 monitoring stations were analyzed, for a small city, in North East Greece. They coincided with SARS-CoV-2 pandemic lockdowns and lifting restrictions. The aim of this analysis was to establish concentration exceedances and roughly apportion sources of the PM2.5 concentration problem. This was established by analyzing 24-h filter samples of trace elements using WD-XRF. It was found that the restrictions and their lifting did not significantly affect these concentrations. The main problems were assigned to emissions from biomass burning central heating and Saharan dust episodes. The study results indicate that even in small cities the air quality as far as PM2.5 is concerned can still be deleterious to the local population according to the WHO restricting levels but not according to the EU levels. The fact that PM2.5 is not a single chemical pollutant makes matters more complicated and renders such concentration upper levels, of little significance.

Weak Institutions and Persistence of Slums in Bihar, India

This study endeavours to answer two questions: (a) why do slums persist? and (b) How can we transform slums into better living space? Small city slums have been largely overlooked in the existing literature on urbanization. The study utilises primary data collected from 184 households and focus group discussions conducted in nine different slums of Gaya, a small city of Bihar in India. Econometric results reveal that perceived legal ownership, prolonged stay at the same location, income and education facilitate the dissolution of slum attributes, as defined by UN-Habitat. Our results also suggest that although patronage associated with corruption within the local formal governance enables reduction of slum characteristics, but discriminatory allocation of public resources contributes to their persistence. The paper suggests that strengthening of security of land tenure, improvement in local governance and adoption of income and human capital augmenting measures can act as potential catalyst towards the endeavour to de-slum a city.