The Rising Relative Presence of Whites in Majority Non-White Cities

After several decades of Whites fleeing large metropolitan areas, they are now increasingly gentrifying urban neighborhoods and communities. This analysis uses data from the 2000 decennial census and the 2012 and 2017 American Community Survey to assess the growing presence of Whites in U.S. cities. The analysis examines the extent to which Whites have experienced an increase in their percentage share of the populations of 212 majority non-White communities with 50,000 or more inhabitants over two time periods (2000 to 2008–2012 and 2008–2012 to 2013–2017). The results show that 39 communities have experienced an expanding relative presence of Whites in one or both periods. Whites generally are growing at a faster pace than Blacks and Latinos in these communities and there are large socioeconomic gaps favoring Whites. The article concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the findings.

Gender Differences in Environmental Correlates of Cycling Activity among Older Urban Adults

Cycling is a form of active transport that can improve the level of health among the elderly population. However, little is known about the environmental correlates of bicycle use among older adults. This study investigated the relationship between the built and social environment and the gender differences in cycling frequency among older urban adults in China. The data were derived from a household travel survey in 2012 and covered thirty-three urban neighborhoods in Zhongshan. The results suggest that denser intersections are negatively related to cycling trips among both older men and women. Reverse associations for either gender, however, are observed between the average income in a neighborhood and cycling frequency. For older women, living far from a bus stop is positively correlated to an increase in daily cycling trips. For older men, social environment, including the proportions of employed or elderly people in a neighborhood, is significantly associated with cycling activity. The findings facilitate the understanding of the gender gap in cycling activity among older urban adults, and help towards designing effective planning strategies as health interventions.

Faith-Driven Gentrification and Displacement in Education in Israeli Urban Neighborhoods

Community-based, Judaism-intensive action groups (Hebrew: Gar’inim Toraniim—GTs) are religiously motivated to settle in Israeli development towns, seeking to narrow social gaps through education. However, their influence has never been fully clarified. This study is grounded in the theory of educational gentrification and introduces the concept of Faith-Driven Gentrification. Until now research has lacked voice from local people forced to face the intervention of settlers driven by religion and their influence on urban school systems. The findings, based on institutional data and in-depth interviews, show that GTs alter the structure of educational systems and the dominant educational ethos. They drive achievement and strict religiosity; nevertheless, their actions impair disadvantaged groups and opponents of their religious lifestyle, intensifying segregation. By giving voice to these communities, this study claims that despite gentrifiers’ commitment to social justice in urban communities, they harm longtime residents through indirect displacement, fueled by religious and ethnic elitism.

The internal socio-economic polarization of urban neighborhoods, the case of Marseille

The socio-economic inequalities of the different metropolitan neighborhoods have been carefully documented and analyzed in the social science literature. Starting from this premise, this article focuses on the less common neighborhoods in which two extremes coexist: very low-income households and high-income households. The objective is to identify the neighborhoods with a high internal socio-economic polarization, geolocate them in the urban space, characterize their population and housing stock, and measure their recent evolutionary trends. The empirical analysis focuses on the neighborhoods of Marseille (France), a city characterized by strong socio-spatial segregation between poor neighborhoods in the north and rich neighborhoods on the southern coast, and the presence of neighborhoods in which populations coexist with unequal resources. This empirical study is based on the fiscal and social data (Filosofi file) that allow knowing the income distribution and based on the census data to characterize the socio-demography and the type of housing of the population. In order to identify neighborhoods with intense internal socio-economic polarization and measure their evolution of income distribution, original poverty and wealth indexes have been developed, which synthesize the two extremes of this distribution. These neighborhoods with a high internal socio-economic polarization usually present certain distinctive aspects, such as their geographical location or a more or less rapid and intense gentrification process. However, some of them seem to escape this process, as evidenced by the contrasting trends in the recent evolution of income distribution and structural heterogeneity of the housing stock, in which small apartments and old buildings are very overrepresented.

Fine-scale Landscape Variability of Cotonou City, Benin: Insights From Three Contrasted Urban Neighborhoods

Urbanization consist in a complex and deep human-driven environmental change that strongly impacts the ecology and evolution of living organisms, including pathogens, reservoir and vector species hence human health. Quantitative proxies of urban landscapes may be very useful to sum-up such a complexity and to guide fundamental and applied research as well as urban planning programs. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide landscape and uses metrics which can be investigated through multivariate analyses, thus providing pertinent synthetic landscape descriptors. As such, our study describes the fine-scale modelling of three urban neighborhoods of Cotonou city, Benin, using GIS, landscape metrics and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Spatial variability between and within neighborhoods revealed different levels of variability, with elements differentiating the three areas from each other, while local neighbourhood-specific variations were also evidenced. We found that Cotonou landscapes are strongly influenced by their history, the natural environment in which they develop as well as the urban planning trajectories. This case study shows that PCA-analyzed of GIS-based metrics may be very relevant to describe and understand the variability of urban landscapes at different scales, thus constituting a valuable tool for urban management of African cities.

Addressing Spatial Inequality in Broadband Use and Community-Level Outcomes

This chapter considers the significance of place for broadband policy evaluation and examines long-term data on Chicago neighborhoods as an example of quasi-experimental design. Interventions are often targeted to low-income urban neighborhoods or rural communities, with goals for increased local employment, economic development, or community health. Measuring outcomes by place provides a way to aggregate impacts for individual residents and to suggest potential spillover benefits for communities. Evaluating broadband use (i.e., subscriptions) over time in communities can address issues of causation as well as long-term outcomes of use. Chicago’s Smart Communities program illustrates the benefits of conducting long-term evaluation, taking advantage of new American Community Survey data that allows tracking of broadband subscriptions in smaller or less-populated geographies such as neighborhoods or rural communities. Finally, the chapter discusses strategies for expanding community-level research through other quasi-experimental designs and the creation and utilization of community-level data on broadband adoption and use.

Digital Simulation for Buildings’ Outdoor Thermal Comfort in Urban Neighborhoods

Buildings’ outdoor thermal comfort influences environment quality and human behavior in urban neighborhoods. The Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) has been broadly applied to the study of buildings’ outdoor thermal comfort in urban areas. However, complex environmental conditions in climate-sensitive urban areas can make UTCI assessment complicated and ineffective. This paper introduces digital techniques into buildings’ outdoor thermal comfort analysis for the improvement of the urban habitant environment. A digital simulation system is generated to facilitate the analysis procedure for buildings’ outdoor thermal comfort assessment in urban neighborhoods. The analysis addresses the research question: “Can digital simulation techniques provide a modeling system to assess buildings’ outdoor thermal comfort continuously and effectively?” Methods include a case study of neighborhoods in Beijing, qualitative and quantitative analysis based on digital processes, and parametric modeling. The results indicate that digital simulation techniques and tools have the capability to support the analysis of buildings’ outdoor thermal comfort by providing three-dimensional models, algorithm-based analysis, and visual simulation. The findings include a critique of digital simulation as applied to architecture study and insights on potentially improving buildings’ outdoor thermal comfort through human–computer interactions.