Multi-Scale 3D Geovisualization of Urban Heat Island Data for Planning Dialogue in Toronto

This e-planning visualization case study in the Toronto region investigated the use of 3D urban models as a visualization reference against which analytical models were visualized to identify micro-scale mitigation scenarios of urban heat island effects. The case studies were directed to processes of planning decision making. The Toronto region faces problems of urban heat island impacts due to the increasing frequency of extreme heat events (Bass, Krayenhoff, & Martilli, 2002). The City of Toronto and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) have each implemented policies and programmes aimed at mitigating urban heat island and climate change effects (City of Toronto, 2006). This research explored ways of visualizing remote sensing heat island data to assist with the targeted application of planning policies and programs.

Socio-Technical Systems on the Move

Because of the advancements in Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), and notably the increased spreading of Web 2.0 Internet-based services and mobile computing, an increasingly information-rich environment is made available, where new types of Socio-Technical Systems (STS) can be established. Due to the pervasiveness of ICT, designing and developing Socio-Technical Systems is raising an increasing interest also from a policy point of view. They play a crucial role in the improvement of the so-called soft-infrastructures, a main asset for delivering social innovation. Raising the performance of such an infrastructure, in fact, turns out to be a major challenge to be addressed in order to meet EU requirements for smart growth. In this chapter, a concept of STS is suggested, and its ICT-enabled implications for policy activity are highlighted. As an example, the concept is used for designing a collaborative platform for health knowledge exchange at a regional level.

There's an App for That

The number of worldwide mobile device users is increasing rapidly, as are the number of applications to serve these devices. Urban planners have the opportunity to use a wide array of mobile applications to increase productivity, share information, and engage with the public. This chapter explores a number of mobile applications that can add value to the work that urban planners undertake. It also considers the types of applications that could be developed to assist planners in their efforts to understand cities and engage with the public.

Indicator Modelling and Interactive Visualisation for Urban Sustainability Assessment

This chapter presents a novel framework for the integration of the principles of sustainable development within the urban design processes. The framework recognises that decision making for sustainable urban planning is a challenging process: requiring an understanding of the complex interactions amongst environmental, economic, and social issues. Methodologies are required that would support non-experts to become more involved in the urban design process. Towards this, the authors develop an indicator modelling and visualisation tool which comprises 1) indicator selection, 2) modelling techniques that allow spatio-temporal prediction of indicators, 3) interactive 3D virtual world where visualisation techniques are used to present indicator information overlaying the virtual world to facilitate effective communication with a wide range of stakeholders. The sustainability modelling and 3D visualisations are shown to have the potential to enhance community engagement within the planning process, thus enhancing public acceptance and participation within the urban or rural development project.

Sequential Experiences in Energy Producing Landscapes

Wind turbines are a major presence in the landscapes of some countries. This presence will become more widespread across the world as the need to reduce coal dependence becomes more broadly accepted. This chapter uses the situation of the state of Victoria in southern Australia to explore the possible extent of landscape change under a move to 100% renewable energy sources, and to explore the key variables and tools for analysis and communication, which will identify the consequences and support planning. A scenario for a future level of wind power generation in Victoria is proposed, potential sites identified, and then the visual impact of these analyzed, not simply on a case-by-case basis but as a system of facilities across the landscape. People travelling by road, or train, will be particularly aware of the extent to which the change is pervasive and new analytical parameters, such as Zipf distribution and fractal dimension, are illustrated. New policy approaches and modes of impact communication are proposed.

Smart Urbanism and Digital Activism in Southern Italy

This chapter debates the competing approaches of the smart city model. It starts by critically discussing top-down approaches, focusing on influence of neoliberal urban experimentation, the role of dominant social interests, the reduction of the city and of urban citizenship, and the risks linked with its uncritical assumption. Then, attention shifts on counter-geographies of digital urbanism drawn from below by citizens, communities, and social movements, as part of a fragmented landscape of activism engaged in building alternative and bottom-up approaches of the smart city. Making use of the case study of a city in southern Italy, Catania, the aim of the chapter is threefold since it discusses the critical aspects linked with dissemination of smart city model as a means for investigating the evolutionary neoliberalization developed in southern Italy during last decades, the influence of neoliberal scripts of urban planning on policy practices, and then the potential alternative activities of digital urbanism hold for a more human-centered and socially embedded smart city.

The Impact of Information and Communication Technology on the Rise of Urban Social Movements in Poland

The chapter examines the relationship between the use of Information and Communications Technology (ITC) and the emergence of social movements focused on urban agenda in Poland. The aim is to investigate how and to what extent a growing body of smaller activist groups use opportunities provided by the ITC to achieve their political objectives. The research results indicate that Web-based media have helped to raise the profile of local initiatives and increased awareness of systemic urban issues between different groups of grass-root actors. The findings of the chapter are based on the analysis of the Congress of Urban Movements (Kongres Ruchów Miejskich: KRM), a broad coalition of smaller non-governmental organizations and bottom-up activist groups, which use Internet-based tools to network. The results indicate that the Web-based tools increase the members' ability to connect and interact, consequently improving the ability to coordinate joint initiatives, expand real-life social networks, and in the result stimulate the rise of urban social movements.

Participatory Environmental Planning Platform

Natural and man-made disasters can pose various threats to the environment and humans. Proper environmental monitoring, early alerts, and response planning and execution are essential. Most government organizations adhere to top-down planning operations, issuing instructions and setting rules and regulations for people to follow. In this chapter, the authors propose a participatory environmental planning platform where environmental planning is based on the data from sensors and “human sensors” to shift from a government-centric to a participatory environmental monitoring and planning paradigm. This platform incorporates intelligent technologies to enhance environmental situation awareness, to promote participatory governance, and to allow citizens to participate in the plan execution; participation is done through local data sharing as necessary to create situation awareness and through a resource sharing provided by citizen volunteers. The authors present a prototype system that provides shared services for the regional municipal governments' environmental planning and response coordination.

A Unified Building Model for a Real 3D Cadastral System

Cadastral systems today are mostly based on digitally represented 2D parcel maps or land registries of 3D components referenced to different documents. With clear limitations to this method, this chapter focuses on creating 3D property information based on existing 3D building models. It starts by investigating shortages of the most prominent semantic building models for BIM and geospatial models (IFC and CityGML, respectively) as well as a pre-developed Unified Building Model (UBM). The result shows that neither one of the three has capabilities for complete 3D cadastre systems. The chapter proposes an extension to the UBM by adding four subtypes to the boundary surfaces above- and under-ground, namely “Building Elements,” “Digging,” “Protecting Area,” and “Real Estate Boundary.” The extended UBM is then implemented in a case study of a hospital building in Sweden and shown to be able to model all surfaces that define 3D cadastral information of buildings. The extended UBM is argued to contribute to e-planning in cities and urban applications as well as to 3D cadastral applications.

E-Governance in Africa and the Challenges Confronting Urban E-Planning

This chapter explores trends in the development of e-governance in Africa, issues, challenges, opportunities, and innovative practices, as well as the impacts that such process is likely to have in the progress of Urban e-Planning in the continent, namely in the five Lusophone African countries: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome and Principe. The first part is focused on e-governance development in Africa. The second section deals with the case of the Lusophone African countries. The level of Urban e-Planning development in African cities is in general far behind cities in developed countries. Besides sharing a common colonial history, administrative tradition, and official language, these five African countries have in common similar urban planning cultures. Despite the overall negative picture of e-governance development in Africa that emerges from this overview and the huge barriers it is confronted with, there are signs that it is possible to have a rapid and sustained progress in the field of Urban e-Planning in the near future.