A New Imagination for Waste and Water in India’s Peri-Urban Interface

Cities are often seen as incubators for enterprise and innovation. However, in this urbanisation era, we seem to suffer from a lack of imagination on how to handle the many environmental problems associated with expanding cities. This is especially true in the case of the peri-urban interface (PUI), a geographical and conceptual landscape with which the city core often has a contentious relationship. In this chapter we look at the complex linkages between water and waste in the PUIs of two metropolitan cities: Bengaluru and Kolkata. We look at two water systems: Kannuru lake in Bengaluru and Kolkata’s wetlands. Kannuru is a freshwater lake that supported traditional livelihoods and subsistence use by local communities, while Kolkata’s peri-urban wetlands not only served as the city’s natural sewage treatment plant but also enabled agriculture and aquaculture. Urbanization has adversely impacted both these water systems. Kannuru lake is threatened by a landfill on its periphery, while sewage-based farming and fisheries in Kolkata’s wetlands have been impacted by changes in land use and composition of sewage. We unravel the complexity in the waste-water relationship, where waste is seen as a pollutant in one and as a nutrient in the other. We attempt to understand how we can re-envision waste and water linkages in the PUIs of expanding cities if India needs to move towards a sustainable future.

Tracing morphological transformations in Cairo's historic cemeteries, a step toward urban conservation

PurposeThis paper focuses on the morphological transformations of Cairo's historic cemeteries that currently form a significant part of historic Cairo designated by the UNESCO as a world heritage site. Cairo's historic cemetery continues to be a main burial ground for the city reflecting layers of funeral epochs. Besides offering burial grounds, Cairo's city of the dead had always hosted living functions including residential and crafts among other activities.Design/methodology/approachAdopting a historico-geographical approach, this study traces morphological transformations of the eastern necropolis of Cairo. Using analysis of archival documents, cartographic and photographic analysis of the eastern necropolis, the study detects changes on three major aspects: (1) impacts of the ever-growing urban city core; (2) transformation of the cemetery's internal urban fabric and (3) change of the size of the residential urban block inside the cemetery.FindingsFindings highlight alarming transformations on the said aspects, threatening the historic value and the urban integrity of Cairo's eastern necropolis. This calls for rising necessities of documentation projects for Cairo's necropolis, as well as urgent necessity of strict applications of local laws of urban conservation.Originality/valueDespite their rich urban variety, cemeteries have been rarely investigated within the scope of urban morphology. This paper is among the few works that investigate cemeteries using tools and approaches of urban morphology. It also calls for further applications of morphological investigations and wider adoption of morphological approaches for the study of historic cemeteries in order to support their preservation.

Urban Connective Syntax: Re-Imagining the Connective Relationshops of Social Space in Toronto’s Downtown Core

Urban metropolitan city-centers offer the most complex, socially connective environments in the built world. The social structures fundamentally embedded in city life are, however increasingly being overshadowed by an isolating system of city densification. The City of Toronto, as a territory of exploration, is one of many cities that are evolving a dense array of restrictive boundaries that increasingly challenge human connectivity, and the deep-rooted ability of these environments to establish vibrant city life. It is the role of architecture to mediate the relationships between the public and private territories and to understand how these environments are utilized and engaged by the surrounding context. This thesis has extracted critical environmental components exemplified in city, community, and building territories, and has re-integrated these defining characteristics into an alternative design strategy that establishes a balanced symbiotic relationship between the private and public realms of Toronto’s future City Core.

Urban Connective Syntax: Re-Imagining the Connective Relationshops of Social Space in Toronto’s Downtown Core

Urban metropolitan city-centers offer the most complex, socially connective environments in the built world. The social structures fundamentally embedded in city life are, however increasingly being overshadowed by an isolating system of city densification. The City of Toronto, as a territory of exploration, is one of many cities that are evolving a dense array of restrictive boundaries that increasingly challenge human connectivity, and the deep-rooted ability of these environments to establish vibrant city life. It is the role of architecture to mediate the relationships between the public and private territories and to understand how these environments are utilized and engaged by the surrounding context. This thesis has extracted critical environmental components exemplified in city, community, and building territories, and has re-integrated these defining characteristics into an alternative design strategy that establishes a balanced symbiotic relationship between the private and public realms of Toronto’s future City Core.

Entropy of the Land Parcel Mosaic as a Measure of the Degree of Urbanization

Quantifying the urbanization level is an essential yet challenging task in urban studies because of the high complexity of this phenomenon. The urbanization degree has been estimated using a variety of social, economic, and spatial measures. Among the spatial characteristics, the Shannon entropy of the landscape pattern has recently been intensively explored as one of the most effective urbanization indexes. Here, we introduce a new measure of the spatial entropy of land that characterizes its parcel mosaic, the structure resulting from the division of land into cadastral parcels. We calculate the entropies of the parcel areas’ distribution function in different portions of the urban systems. We have established that the Shannon and Renyi entropies R0 and R1/2 are most effective at differentiating the degree of a spatial organization of the land. Our studies are based on 30 urban systems located in the USA, Australia, and Poland, and three desert areas from Australia. In all the cities, the entropies behave the same as functions of the distance from the center. They attain the lowest values in the city core and reach substantially higher values in suburban areas. Thus, the parcel mosaic entropies provide a spatial characterization of land to measure its urbanization level effectively.

Universal Mobility in Old Core Cities of India: People’s Perception

In this research, users’ perception towards Universal Mobility in old core cities of India has been critically analyzed. Despite Universal Design guidelines from the United Nations and Union Government of India, old cities in India seldom have Universal Mobility, in effect endangering the lifestyle of senior citizens and differently-abled people. The core of Kolkata Municipal Corporation in Kolkata, India, has been considered a case example for this research. This research has considered three types of datasets for analysis. First, the authors interviewed 310 respondents from the Indian design fraternity, with the objective of understanding their opinions on the concept of Universal Design. In the next investigative study of 125 respondents from different wards of Kolkata Municipal Corporation, the purpose was to comprehend people’s perception regarding walkability and mobility in an old Indian city. In the last visual survey of a stretch in Central Kolkata, the focus was on identifying hindrances in Universal Mobility in an old city core of Indian origin. Significant dissatisfaction was found regarding walkability amongst all user groups, which is linked to poor infrastructural conditions. Furthermore, accessing public transportation is difficult due to improper waiting facilities. However, the design fraternity in India suggests the need of separate accessibility guidelines for old and new cities in India. The design fraternity also recommends a customized rating system for accessing Universal Design. The result of this study indicates a need of recognizing the difficulty in imparting Universal Mobility in old core cities in India. This information can be used for preparing an access audit checklist through Architectural Planning, which is the first step in proposing a framework for Universal Mobility in old core cities in India.

Universal Mobility in Old Core Cities of India: People’s Perception

In this research, users’ perception towards Universal Mobility in old core cities of India has been critically analyzed. Despite Universal Design guidelines from the United Nations and Union Government of India, old cities in India are seldom having Universal Mobility, in effect endangering the lifestyle of senior citizens and differently-abled people. The core of Kolkata Municipal Corporation in Kolkata, India has been considered as a case example for this research. This research has considered three types of data sets for analysis. First, the authors interviewed 310 respondents from the Indian design fraternity, with the objective of understanding their opinion on the concept of Universal Design. In the next investigative study of 125 respondents from different wards of Kolkata Municipal Corporation, the purpose was to comprehend people’s perception about walkability and mobility in an old Indian city. In the last visual survey of a stretch in Central Kolkata, the focus was identifying the hindrance in Universal Mobility in an old city core of Indian origin. Significant dissatisfaction was found in walkability amongst all user groups; which is linked to poor infrastructural conditions. Furthermore, accessing public transportation is difficult due to improper waiting facilities. However, the design fraternity in India suggests the need of separate accessibility guidelines for old and new cities in India. The design fraternity also recommends a customized rating system for accessing Universal Design. The result of this study indicates a need of recognizing the difficulty in imparting Universal Mobility in old core cities in India. This information can be used for preparing an Access Audit Checklist through Architectural Planning, which is the first step in proposing a framework for Universal Mobility in old core cities in India.

Traffic congestion and economic context: changes of spatiotemporal patterns of traffic travel times during crisis and post-crisis periods

This paper aims to evaluate the impacts of the economic context on traffic congestion and its consequential effects on private vehicle accessibility. We conduct a long-term analysis of spatiotemporal traffic congestion patterns in Madrid (Spain), comparing two urban realms: the 2008 economic crisis and the following post-crisis situation. We apply TomTom Speed Profiles data to assess daily variations in traffic congestion and their changes between both periods, and Twitter data to capture spatial patterns of the daily pulse of the city. Increased traffic, a by-product of economic recovery, resulted in higher congestion, particularly during peak hours. Nevertheless, these changes are spatially uneven. In the city core, an increase in congestion is relatively temporally homogeneous, while in the peripheral suburban zones, there has been only a marginal increase in travel times. On the other hand, in the urban outskirts, increased traffic congestion is more severe but visibly different between north and south. These differences have strong social connotations: over 40% of the population experienced a dramatic increase in travel times (more than 25%) during peak hours. Moreover, low-income groups are more likely to live in the more affected southern districts, suffering most the negative consequences of increased congestion.

Future cities: Speculation on the case for vertical biophilic cities

As the world’s population increases and as populations of cities increase there is a real need to find solutions to accommodate these people. Vertical cities may provide a solution. Whilst megastructures have been built as individual buildings, thus far there are no vertical cities, but the existing megastructures indicate this is possible. The skyscrapers of vertical cities can be integrated in the skies as well as below ground as earthscrapers and host all the functions of the city including green spaces such as parks and gardens and urban agriculture. The current model of a central city core area and expansive suburbs does not provide a solution for future growth. Past and future losses in ecosystem services through extensive horizontal development cannot be sanctioned. This is an ‘ideas paper’ which speculates on the forms of future vertical cities and the necessity of integrating biophilia into the vertical city as not only do vertical cities provide an answer to accommodating the world’s burgeoning population, but the compact footprint of the city allows for an increase in nature, access to nature, allowing land that would be swamped by development to be used for farming, water collection, forests and other land uses that host the ecosystem services that are required by people and the planet.