Modelling and simulating ‘informal urbanization’: An integrated agent-based and cellular automata model of urban residential growth in Ghana

The global urban population is expected to grow by 2.5 billion over the next three decades, and 90% of this growth will occur in African and Asian countries. Urban expansion in these regions is often characterised by ‘informal urbanization’ whereby households self-build without planning permission in contexts of ambiguous, insecure or disputed property rights. Despite the scale of informal urbanization, it has received little attention from scholars working in the domains of urban analytics and city science. Towards addressing this gap, we introduce TI-City, an urban growth model designed to predict the locations, legal status and socio-economic status of future residential developments in an African city. In a bottom-up approach, we use agent-based and cellular automata modelling techniques to predict the geospatial behaviour of key urban development actors, including households, real estate developers and government. We apply the model to the city-region of Accra, Ghana, drawing on local data collection, including a household survey, to parameterise the model. Using a multi-spatial-scale validation technique, we compare TI-City’s ability to simulate historically observed built-up patterns with SLEUTH, a highly popular urban growth model. Results show that TI-City outperforms SLEUTH at each scale, suggesting the model could offer a valuable decision support tool in similar city contexts.

Mapping Green Infrastructure Based on Multifunctional Ecosystem Services: A Sustainable Planning Framework for Utah’s Wasatch Front

Most sustainable planning frameworks assess natural and social–economic landscape systems as separate entities, and our understanding of the interrelationships between them is incomplete. Landscape classification in urbanizing environments requires an integrated spatial planning approach to better address the United Nation’s sustainable development challenges. The objective of this research is to apply a multicriteria evaluation which ranked diverse ecosystem–service producing landscapes and synthesize the findings within a unique green infrastructure spatial planning framework. Local government stakeholder derived weighting and GIS classification were operated to map both the urban and natural landscapes of the Salt Lake City region of Utah, one of the most rapidly urbanizing areas in North America. Results were assimilated through five regional landscape typologies—Ecological, Hydrological, Recreational, Working Lands, and Community—and indicated those highest ranked landscape areas which provided multiple ecosystem services. These findings support collaborative decision making among diverse stakeholders with overlapping objectives and illustrates pathways to the development of ecosystem service criteria. This paper contributes to a better understanding of how to integrate data and visualize the strategic approaches required for sustainable planning and management, particularly in urban and urbanizing regions where complex socioecological landscapes predominate.

Selection of the Optimal Window Type and Orientation for the Two Cities in Serbia and One in Slovakia

The necessity of having windows on any building’s façade is not questionable. However, not every window is suitable for any building. The selection of an adequate window must include the analysis of various factors—the most important ones are the type of window (e.g., single or double glazing); filling gas in cavities (e.g., air, argon or some other gas); and placing, i.e., orientation of a window on a façade (facing north, south, or east, etc.). The research presented in this paper is dealing with the calculation of the window thermal loading for the cities of Kragujevac and Bor in Serbia and Žilina in Slovakia. These three cities were selected because they belong to different climate regions, according to the Köppen–Geiger climatic classification. The first two cities in Serbia belong to the same region Cf with difference only in the category of summer—Kragujevac Cfa and Bor Cfb—while the third city—Žilina in Slovakia—belongs to the Dfb region. The calculated thermal loading through the window was obtained as a sum of the thermal loading due to the heat conduction and thermal loading due to the solar radiation. The objective was to find the optimal window construction and orientation of a building’s façade for each of these cities, by varying the type of the window, its frame material and the filling gas. The results show that for the first two cities in Serbia, there is a difference in the window frame material in the optimal window construction, while for the third city (Žilina in Slovakia), the results are the same as for the second city (Bor in Serbia) despite the fact that they belong to different climate regions (Cfb and Dfb, respectively). These results support the fact that the climate affects the optimal window construction for any city/region in the world.

PERAN NOTARIS DALAM PEMANFAATAN RUANG BAWAH TANAH UNTUK SARANA JARINGAN UTILITAS TERPADU DI DKI JAKARTA

Peningkatan bonus demografi di Indonesia menyebabkan jumlah permukaan lahan untuk dimanfaatkan ruangnya dalam menggerakan roda ekonomi semakin sempit. Provinsi Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta yang menjadi pusat bisnis dalam menghadapi masalah keterbatasan lahan perlu memanfaatkan ruang bawah tanah yang ada. Keberadaan ruang bawah tanah pada praktiknya dimanfaatkan untuk sarana jaringan utilitas terpadu agar pemanfaatan lahan menjadi lebih optimal. Sebelum adanya Undang-Undang Nomor 11 Tahun 2020 pemanfaatan ruang bawah tanah tidak diatur secara komprehensif. Kemudian barulah Peraturan Pemerintah No. 18 tahun 2021 menegaskan secara yuridis bahwa terdapat pemisahan secara horizontal antara kepemilikan hak atas tanah di atas permukaan dengan di bawah tanah. Namun dalam penerapan peraturan-peraturan dimaksud masih perlu adanya sosialisasi terus menerus agar tercipta keteraturan pemahaman hukum. Lebih lanjut, dengan adanya Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi Nomor 91/PUU-XVIII/2020 yang menyatakan UUCK inkonstitusional bersyarat diduga dapat memperlambat proses penerapan peraturan baru ini. Bahwa dalam hal ini diperlukan peranan notaris sebagai pejabat pembuat akta tanah yang akan bersinggungan dengan hal-hal dimaksud. Notaris perlu turut andil dalam peran edukasi terkait khususnya pelaksanaanya selama masa pandemi covid-19 saat ini. Penulis menemukan dalam pemanfaatan ruang bawah tanah menggunakan hak guna bangunan dimana untuk pembuatan aktanya dapat diproses oleh notaris.Keyword: Notaris, ruang bawah tanah, jaringan utilitasAbstractThe increase in the demographic bonus in Indonesia causes the amount of land to be used for economic development purposes has its own limitation. The Province of the Special Capital City Region of Jakarta, which is a business center that dealing with the problem of limited land, needs to take advantage of the existing underground space. The existence of underground space is usually utilized for integrated utility network facilities so that land use becomes more optimal. Prior to Law Number 11 of 2020 the use of underground spaces was not comprehensively regulated. Then the Government Regulation No. 18 of 2021 juridically confirms that there is a horizontal separation between ownership of land rights above the surface and below the ground. However, in the application of these regulations, there is still a need for continuous socialization in order to create a regular understanding of the law. Furthermore, with the Constitutional Court Decision Number 91/PUU-XVIII/2020 which states that the UUCK is conditionally unconstitutional, it is suspected that it can slow down the process of implementing this new regulation. That in this case the role of a notary as an official making land deeds is needed which will intersect with the underground utilization. Notaries need to take part in the role of related education, especially its implementation during the current covid-19 pandemic. The author finds that in the use of the basement using the right to use the building where the deed can be processed by a notary.