Knowledge Society

This chapter is developed along three conceptual axes: citizenship; knowledge society: transparency; and trust and participation. It begins by explaining the concept of citizenship and its historical roots, the Greek polis and the Roman civitas; the revival of cities in the Late Middle Ages and their consolidation in the Modern Age. It analyzes the citizenship construct with the affirmation of each inhabitant as a citizen involved in improving the several plans of the quality of urban life. The second axis evaluates the characteristics of knowledge societies as promoting factors to a citizenship based on socio-political indicators that build trust between the citizen. The third axis deals with transparency and trust as active disseminators of timely and relevant information to the public and its impact on corruption, as a barrier against a broad citizenship. At the methodological level, the study combines bibliographic research with a field research by questionnaire.

Making a Building Smart with a Co-Created and Continuously Evolving Enjoyable Service Entity—Insights from a Collaborative Study

Buildings shape cities as those cities grow from and nurture people living and working within the built environment. Thus, the conceptualization of smart building should be brought closer to the smart city initiatives that particularly target ensuring and enhancing the sustainability and quality of urban life. In this paper, we propose that a smart building should be interlinked with a smart city surrounding it; it should provide good experiences to its various occupants and it should be in an ongoing state of evolving as an ecosystem, wherein different stakeholders can join to co-produce, co-provide and co-consume services. Smart buildings require a versatile set of smart services based on digital solutions, solutions in the built environment and human activities. We conducted a multiphase collaborative study on new service opportunities guided by a Design Thinking approach. The approach brought people, technology, and business perspectives together and resulted in key service opportunities that have the potential to make the buildings smart and provide enjoyable experience to the occupants who support their living and working activities in smart cities. This paper provides the resulting practical implications as well as proposes future avenues for research.

Two Interviews, Images of the Mobility Paths

This document compares two videos that date from the same year (1969) and provide a basis for discussion about two different paradigms of urban thinking present in the 1960’s: an interview with Jane Jacobs on the show "The way it is", on Canadian broadcaster CBC, in which she disputes the plans to build Spadina Expressway in Toronto, and a presentation by the then Mayor of São Paulo, Paulo Salim Maluf, on the plans to build Elevado Presidente Costa e Silva (currently named Elevado João Goulart, nicknamed Minhocão [the Big Worm]), an elevated expressway in São Paulo. By confronting the videos, the antagonism of the discourses regarding the role of road infrastructure, the value given to the urban environment, and the idea of quality of urban life becomes clear. The materials are also an illustration of two different outcomes: the halting of the Spadina Expressway works in Toronto and the completion of the Minhocão works in São Paulo.

“RESLOBALIZATION” OF CITIES AS AN EFFECTIVE RESPONSE TO THE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL CHALLENGE OF THE CONTEMPORARY. PART I: GENERAL PROVISIONS, RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

The article is devoted to the problem of adaptation of the living environment of the population of large and largest cities to the vital and dangerous challenges of the new coronavirus pandemic. The author suggests that historically developed cities in their traditional hypostasis have a certain” anti-epidemic “ potential of morphotypological genesis, which must be taken into account, it is advisable to use and it is desirable to increase in the extreme situation of the global COVID-19 epidemic. The working hypothesis of the study is formulated on the basis of the results of monitoring the data of the offi cial St. Petersburg statistics, which refl ect the dynamics of the incidence of new coronavirus infection among citizens, starting from March 2020. According to these results, the most stable epidemiological situation persists in the historical suburbs of the” northern capital “ and its central administrative districts. The center of St. Petersburg was originally developed as a “conglomerate of sett lements” - pre-industrial and proto- industrial urban planning morphotypes that have been inherent in the Russian urban planning culture since ancient times. Urban sett lements, which preserved their planning characteristics in the course of a historically predetermined morphotypological transformation, became the basis for the formation of a set of spatial loci in the structure of a megalopolis - separate components of the urban landscape, within which, if necessary, the introduction of stringent control measures and epidemiological situation in St. Petersburg, it is possible to protect “idealizations” quality of urban life and where work most eff ectively medicareinsurance “antipandemic” sliders “disaggregation”, “distancing”, “disinfection”.

Description Relationship between Urban Space and Quality of Urban Life. A Geographical Approach

The examination of the relationship between the construct of urban space and the construct of the quality of urban life is based on the knowledge that their common element is real physical space, i.e., the place. If the examination of the relationship between the two constructs is to be meaningful, then both must be on the same comparative basis—that means quality. The paper consists of two parts—the first part, which is theoretical, takes the form of conceptualization of urban space and the quality of urban life, including the identification of elements which affect them. The result of conceptualizing urban space into a qualitative form is liveability. The result of conceptualizing the quality of urban life is a holistic quality of life in the city, containing two domains—subjective and objective. The second part of the paper is the application of both constructs in a concrete form, based on measuring the values of these indicators and also the analysis of the results. The measurement takes the form of liveability on the one hand and of satisfaction with the place and/or satisfaction with the quality of urban life on the other hand.

Modelling of Traffic Noise Along Urban Corridor: A Case Study of Amman

Noise became one of the main environmental indicators of the quality of urban life. The aim of this study was to develop a traffic noise model for an arterial road in Amman, the capital of Jordan, which was being subjected to a persistent increase in traffic and its related issues. The characteristics of the traffic and its relevant noise were analysed to develop a noise prediction model using an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). A geographic information system (GIS) was then implemented to model the current noise along the arterial road. The results of ANFIS model showed that traffic delays and the percentage of heavy vehicles were the main causes of traffic noise generation within the urban area. However, the developed ANFIS model can simulate traffic noise with a relatively low root mean square error. Furthermore, this study will help to improve the perception about traffic noise and its development along arterial roads.

The city of proximity as an Urban Health strategy for the post pandemic neighborhood’s needs

The lockdown due to the pandemic has prevented travels, forcing many people to work at home and reducing the possibility of accessing services in the territory. This condition has further highlighted the importance of urban living areas capable of satisfying basic needs within a reasonably easy range of accessibility. The concept of the “15 minutes city” is a useful vision to represent the city of proximity, where it is possible to meet the needs for sustainable, fair, quality, and healthy living. However, even if the objectives represented are fundamental, the model it proposes - accessibility within 15 minutes - is not always applicable in all urban contexts, mostly peripheral, peri-urban, or low-density ones. This dimension of proximity - to be defined from time to time according to urban contexts - can be central to formulating strategies to improve the quality of urban life. Still, it can also play a role in constructing forms of intervention to improve public health and in ordinary conditions, both in extraordinary and emergency conditions. From this point of view, a proximity area can be an area to be defined with a variety of tools typical of urban analysis but fed by overlapping layers that also refer to the health dimension. A place of proximity, therefore not only defined based on the physical characteristics and people's uses, but also based on the data collected from a public health perspective in which it is also possible to try to test different types of information and build the conditions to suggest suitable policies and projects. Aim of the authors is to illustrate a survey about several case studies considered virtuous at the international level, analyzed in detail to highlight the main urban and architectural features of those healthy experiences and the related health outcomes, such as sedentary lifestyle reduction, increase of the attractiveness of places, reduction of air and noise pollution.

The Impact of Textile Waste on the Features of High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) Composites

An increased amount of textile waste will be available in the future, and its utilization requires attention from various perspectives. The re-utilization of textile waste in a second material cycle is an option for dealing with a global problem that puts stress on the urban environment. In this study, almost 30 kg of clothing were recycled as a raw material in the structure of a composite, whose structural properties were analyzed. The studied materials were made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE), anhydride modified polyethylene, lubricant, and either polyethylene terephthalate (PET) or rayon fibers from recycled clothes. The recycled clothes were identified by a near-infrared (NIR) analyzer, followed by treatment of size reduction and materials compounding by agglomeration and compression molding technologies. The material properties were characterized by thickness swelling, water absorption, impact, and tensile testing. The recycled clothes fibers, acting as a filler component in the structure of the composite, could maintain the properties of the material at the same level as the reference material. PET fibers being used as a component resulted in a significant improvement in impact strength. The study showed that recycled clothes can be re-utilized as a substitute for raw materials, and can be part of a solution for future challenges involving textile waste, following the principles of the circular economy. Textile recycling create opportunities to improve the quality of urban life.