Urban Development Reduces Bee Abundance and Diversity

Wild bee communities persist in cities despite major disruption of nesting and food resources by urban development. Bee diversity and abundance is key for urban agriculture and maintenance of plant diversity, and assessing what aspects of cities enhance bee populations will promote our capacity to retain and provision bee habitat. Here, we assessed how variation in land cover and neighborhood development history affected bee communities in the midwestern US urban landscape of Madison, Wisconsin. We sampled bee communities across 38 sites with relatively high (> 55%) or low (< 30%) levels of impervious surface, and assessed effects of land use and neighborhood development history on bee abundance and species richness. We show abundance and richness of bees was lower in recently developed neighborhoods, with particularly strong negative effects on soil nesting bees. Soil nesting bees and bee community richness decreased as cover of impervious surface increased, but above ground nesting bees were minimally impacted. Bee community similarity varied spatially and based on dissimilar local land cover, only for soil nesting bees, and the overall bee community. Impervious surface limited bee abundance and diversity, but new neighborhoods were associated with greater negative effects. We suggest that enhancing the structural diversity of new neighborhoods in urban ecosystems may imitate the structural benefits of older neighborhoods for bee populations.

Recent Urban Development Reduces Bee Abundance and Diversity

Wild bee communities persist in cities despite major disruption of nesting and food resources by urban development. Bee diversity and abundance is key for urban agriculture and maintenance of plant diversity, and assessing what aspects of cities enhance bee populations will promote our capacity to retain and provision bee habitat. Here, we assessed how variation in land cover and neighborhood development history affected bee communities in the midwestern US urban landscape of Madison, Wisconsin. We sampled bee communities across 38 sites with relatively high (> 55%) or low (< 30%) levels of impervious surface, and assessed effects of land use and neighborhood development history on bee abundance and species richness. We show abundance and richness of bees was lower in recently developed neighborhoods, with particularly strong negative effects on soil nesting bees. Soil nesting bees and bee community richness decreased as cover of impervious surface increased, but above ground nesting bees were minimally impacted. Bee community similarity varied spatially and based on dissimilar local land cover, only for soil nesting bees, and the overall bee community. Impervious surface limited bee abundance and diversity, but new neighborhoods were associated with greater negative effects. We suggest that enhancing the structural diversity of new neighborhoods in urban ecosystems may imitate the structural benefits of older neighborhoods for bee populations.

The Role of “Scale” on the Acceleration of Social Interaction in Urban Spaces

Rehabilitation projects are interventions that can lead to the transformation of the socio-spatial structure of obsolescent neighborhoods. The main intention of such projects is the creation and/or improvement of social interactions after physical and functional interventions. Urban Renewal Organization of Tehran (UROT) is tasked with identification of target obsolescent neighborhoods, preparation of neighborhood development plans and implementation of rehabilitation projects to improve the quality of space and stimulate social interactions. In this paper, three urban spaces in different scales (“micro” for neighborhoods, “meso” for local and “macro” for trans-local scales), designed and implemented by UROT, were selected as a case study. By designing and filling a questionnaire and after analyzing research findings, the effect of the scale of the urban project on different activities was evaluated based on the Gehl model. Overall, in the expanded model based on the scale of space, an inverse ratio between the scale of space and both optional selective and social activities has been revealed.

Microdistrict Solnechnyi: An urban design manifesto of the Siberian city

The article touches upon the questions of the evolution and potential for the development of urban fabric in the case study of the Solnechnyi microdistrict in Irkutsk. The methods for structural analysis of the potential for the neighborhood development are applied on the scale of the microdistrict and housing typology. It serves as a basis for modeling and adaptation of the existing housing to a change in the internal and external conditions of development. The proposed adaptation methods for the development allow to enhance our insight into the spatial potential of the structure and identity of the microdistrict, as well as into improving the comfort of housing and revitalizing the living space. When elaborating design and regulatory strategies for the development of large scale housing estates, it is advisable to use the tools of spatial and planning adaptation in the existing morphotypes.

Neighborhood Characteristics and Cancer Survivorship: An Overview of the Current Literature on Neighborhood Landscapes and Cancer Care

There is a growing literature on the association between neighborhood contexts and cancer survivorship. To understand the current trends and the gaps in the literature, we aimed to answer the following questions: To what degree, and how, has cancer survivorship research accounted for neighborhood-level effects? What neighborhood metrics have been used to operationalize neighborhood factors? To what degree do the neighborhood level metrics considered in cancer research reflect neighborhood development as identified in the Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) guidelines? We first conducted a review guided by PRISMA extension for scoping review of the extant literature on neighborhood effects and cancer survivorship outcomes from January 2000 to January 2021. Second, we categorized the studied neighborhood metrics under six main themes. Third, we assessed the findings based on the LEED-ND guidelines to identify the most relevant neighborhood metrics in association with areas of focus in cancer survivorship care and research. The search results were scoped to 291 relevant peer-reviewed journal articles. Results show that survivorship disparities, primary care, and weight management are the main themes in the literature. Additionally, most articles rely on neighborhood SES as the primary (or only) examined neighborhood level metric. We argue that the expansion of interdisciplinary research to include neighborhood metrics endorsed by current paradigms in salutogenic urban design can enhance the understanding of the role of socioecological context in survivorship care and outcomes.

Identification and Organizing of Yazd Eskan Neighborhood -2019

Introduction: Implementing any intervention in the community requires identifying and organizing the community as well as actively involving members of the community. This study was conducted to identify and organize one of the suburbs of Yazd in 2019. Method: This research was a community-based participatory research (CBPR), which was handled in the Yazd Eskan neighborhood. The settlement area with a population of 16,000 people is located on the western outskirts of Yazd. With the implementation of health transformation programs in the 11th government, first, the health base in 1394 and then Dr. Malekafzali Comprehensive Health Services Center in this area has been set up and started to work in 1395 to provide various health services to the residents of this area. Considering the potentials of this neighborhood, including high social cohesion and the existence of a dynamic and popular non-governmental organization, since 1396, this place has been a candidate for the implementation of empowerment and optimal development of neighborhood health (Tabassum project). The steps of implementing the optimal Health development plan (Tabasaom) involved five steps of area identification, organizing, empowerment, requirement assessment, and intervention, and action. In this paper, the identification and organizing steps are explained. Frequency and percentage were used for descriptive statistics. Results: The neighborhood of Eskan is among the marginal regions of Yazd province and had 4357 households and a population of 15948 people, as 5.51% male and 5.48% female. A total of 100 people in 50 clusters participated in data collection. Executive steps in the identification phase, the justification of stakeholders, and the whose census of most people population of the study females (51.5%), The age group 59.9-30 years old (40.1%), Diploma (27%), income10-20 million (Rial) (49.1%). 61.4% of females, 37.08% had the age of 50-30 years old, 28.13% BA, and 53.13% were housewives. In the area of organizing clustering of the region, the selection of cluster, the formation of the Community Health Association, the creation of thought, and the Credit fund was made. Conclusion: Identifying and organizing the community, especially in the suburbs, provides a transparent and logical process for the community to participate purposefully in identifying the problems of their neighborhood. Paying attention to the basic needs of neighborhoods can lead to better participation in neighborhood development.

Art Museums and Neighborhood Development: Historical Evidence from the Case of the Portland Art Museum and the South Park Blocks in Portland, Oregon

This article investigates when and how art museums might be engaged to benefit neighborhood development. To address this, the article presents research analyzing physical neighborhood and land use change in the Portland Art Museum and the South Park Blocks neighborhood in Oregon between 1932 and the 2010s. The analysis suggests that the art museum benefited neighborhood development in response to planning interventions that promoted a livability agenda. Alongside measures to prevent gentrification, planners and policy makers can activate art museums to create more livable neighborhoods.

SECURITY ECOLOGIES OF A COLLABORATIVE ENGINEERING ORGANIZATION IN A REVITALIZING CITY

In 2014, the organizers of Bowman Creek Educational Ecosystem (BCe2) designed a project to revive a vital but polluted tributary to the St. Joseph River through a growing collaboration of dozens of institutions, community groups, schools, and universities in the revitalizing city of South Bend, Indiana. In 2020, BCe2 continues to work in a post-industrial community still facing many challenges from lack of mobility to declining infrastructure and high crime rates. This article focuses on this ecological coalition’s first year of full-scale programs in 2016, when its organizers often expressed BCe2’s neighborhood development interests through the framework of safety concerns. In an effort to develop a long-neglected waterway, the organization’s safety orientations presented an underlying framework of security agendas emerging from perceptions of South Bend’s Southeast neighborhood as an embattled urban community. BCe2 planners often conceptually militarized its operations in a security ecology, a pervasive order of surveillance practices and perceptions that attempted to neutralize longstanding community defense strategies by engineering development interventions.

A Queer Reading of the United States Census

LGBTQ neighborhoods face change. Planning for these neighborhoods requires data about LGBTQ residential concentration. Some analysts have used US Census same-sex partner data to make judgments about LGBTQ neighborhoods. Two agency actions make this reliance problematic. The US Census was required to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act and reassigned some LGBTQ responses in a heteronormal way. The Census also assigned sex based upon patterns of names. These US Census actions of gay removal and sex assignment to datasets raise questions about the usefulness of the partner dataset. A queer reading of the census may give a better representation of neighborhood development and decline. Data are developed for four queer neighborhoods: the West Village in New York City, Center City Philadelphia, Midtown Atlanta, and Midtown Kansas City. The results show that queer attributes of these areas grew to about 1990. Some queer attributes may have declined some from their peak. The results raise questions about social surveys, the closet, and the direction of LBGTQ neighborhoods in the twenty-first century. LGBTQ displacement has occurred.