An Empirical Model for Assessing the Impact of Air Quality on Urban Residents’ Loyalty to Place of Residence

There has been a growing interest in the impact of environmental awareness on ‘green’ or ‘environmentally friendly’ consumption patterns, and this has been the subject of much research by environmental psychologists. However, the effect of environmental awareness on residents and their attachment to their homes and their environment has received little attention and is worthy of closer examination. Outdoor air quality can be considered one of the most critical environmental factors impacting the value of a residential location. This research investigates how air pollution-related environmental factors influence residents’ attachment to the place of residence and their willingness to move. It defines the structural relationship between air pollution awareness parameters, which are later employed in the proposed structural equation model (SEM), to explain ‘district loyalty’. A survey was carried out in Almaty, Kazakhstan, one of the most populated and polluted cities in Central Asia. A total of 550 respondents responded. Based on the overall model’s test results, the factors relating to district loyalty explained the 17.5% variation in the samples, which suggests that the perception of residents to their district air quality has a low-level impact on loyalty to their place of residence. The power of perceived environmental risks appears to have little relation to district loyalty. The most influential factor on the model is environmental behaviour parameter, which is about adopting attitudes and behaviours aimed at minimizing negative impacts on the environment. When the perceived environmental risk increased, their place attachment levels only slightly decreased. However, the obtained results do not confirm that district loyalty significantly correlates with their readiness/unreadiness to move to another residence in order to enjoy improved air quality. To sum up, environmental awareness of local air quality seems not to directly affect residents’ attachment to place. Nevertheless, indirect effects can be presented in research relating to urban residents’ place attachment. Research, policy and sectoral implications of the findings are addressed and discussed in detail.

Environmental Flow Estimation of Brunei River Based on Climate Change

The concept of environmental flows and its application and enforcement is a main challenge in several developing countries. The services and benefits derived from the ecosystem are indispensable for sustaining the livelihood of people particularly living in coastal areas. Decision-makers often ignore ecosystems when referring to water allocation, as the supporters of ecosystems are less vocal as compared to other stakeholders. This study focuses on establishing guidelines for maintaining the minimum amount of flow known as environmental flow of Brunei River in Brunei Darussalam for the sustainability of its rich ecosystem. In this study, the flow of the river was simulated based on land use, climate change, and potential growth of industries using a Water Evaluation and Planning System as a computing tool. The study finds that the months of March and June (1.48 and 3.92 m3/s) are more vulnerable to low flow. It recommends a threshold value of 2.7 m3/s for the environmental flow of Brunei River essential to preserve its rich and diversified ecosystem.

Connecting the Disconnected: The Role of ICT in Women’s Livelihood Restoration in the Resettlement Site Kannagi Nagar in Chennai, India

In Chennai, Development-Induced Displacement and Resettlement (DIDR) pushes the urban poor to resettlement sites in the outskirts of the city. One of those sites is Kannagi Nagar, located 15 km from the city centre, in which women suffer from more significant livelihood deprivation. As there is evidence of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) being useful in development, this study aims to explain the role of ICT in the livelihood restoration and enhancement of the social and financial capital for women in Kannagi Nagar. Through a case study with a blend of quantitative and qualitative techniques, the research incorporated a closed-ended questionnaire survey and interviews. Among the women, ICT use is prevalent, however, they have not fully optimized the potentials of ICT for livelihood restoration. The use is still limited to the purpose of maintaining the contacts they already have. However, some women have been able to use ICT, especially through their phones, for the restoration and enhancement of their social and financial capital. Nonetheless, to harness the full potential of ICT and strengthen women’s agency, access to ICT should be improved.

Relationship Between Population Urbanization and Urban Sprawl Across Different City Sizes in China

In this study, a coordination model based on the data of urban population and built-up areas from 2006 to 2015 is used to assess the relationship between population urbanization and urban sprawl across 654 cities in Mainland China. For analysis, 654 cities are divided into five categories (small city, medium city, large city, super city and mega city) and the relationship between population urbanization and urban sprawl is divided into four types (rapid growth of population, rapid expansion of land, shrinkage of population and land and coordinated development between population and land). The results show that 60.6% of cities are rapid expansion of land, 18.5% are rapid growth of population, 14.1% are shrinkage of population and land and only 6.9% of cities are coordinated development between population and land. Small, medium, large and super cities were characterized by rapid expansion of land, while mega cities featured rapid growth of population. The size of the cities decreased mainly because of the shrinkage of people and land while it increased because of the rapid expansion of land. The cities with shrinkage of population and land, and rapid growth of population are mostly distributed in the east of the Hu Line.

Disaster Risk Governance in Bangladesh: How Do NGOs Find Themselves in the Network?

The roles and responsibilities of state-led organizations have remained the primary focus of disaster risk governance (DRG) literature. While integration of NGOs into formal disaster risk reduction (DRR) has been persistently promoted by the recent United Nations’ DRG frameworks to support state interventions, the low uptake of embracing core principles of DRR by NGOs is noted. Tension within network governance of DRG, including state and non-governmental actors, is also reported by several scholars, particularly in developing countries, but has not been investigated empirically with greater details. To contribute to this research agenda, the study aims to explore how NGOs perceive and value their contributions to DRG. Based on a structured questionnaire survey with development activists (DAs) from NGOs in the southwest coastal region of Bangladesh, the study found that reactive interventions (emergency response and post-disaster support) by them was perceived to be the most critical focus of DRG despite changing theoretical and global perspectives towards pre-disaster preparedness and mitigative measures. Vertical network governance was favoured within NGOs’ own networks outside the state’s direct supervision, identifying a critical role played by local NGOs. The capacity of leadership of NGOs was promoted by the respondents who worked in decision-making positions within their organizations, whilst professionals with lack of experience within the NGO sector tended to favour state actors. The findings could be critical in understanding local capacities and in co-creating hazard specific plans using various stakeholders.

Sustainable Financing for Urban Karnataka: Viable Options

The objectives of the current paper are to suggest measures to improve the taxation and tax collection mechanisms in selected cities of Karnataka. We review and reform (where necessary) bases of assessments of revenue streams and suggest enhancement of revenue sources by suitable mechanisms that can be implemented in all the selected cities. Finally, we estimate revenue capacities of the cities and recommend expansion capabilities. The methodology of the study involved visits to each of the selected 12 cities, examination of their audited financial statements, analysis of their major revenue sources and estimation of revenue capacities for each of the cities. We recommended measures to fix relevant policies to improve the system of tax collection and revenue generation mechanisms. Summarizing our findings, increasing revenue compliance from non-paying and unassessed properties and taxation of government properties of a commercial nature, increases the property tax base for all cities across the board. The next step is to increase values of properties, in accordance with market values in an economic sense, in a gradual manner. Water connections must be metered, given that water is a scarce resource, we find its revenue potential to be nearly the same as that from property tax.

Towards New Urban Agenda: A Radical Reorientation of Urban Planning Education in India

An urbanizing country such as India has its own development challenges given the conditions of dystopias and discontent in the urban areas. In addition, three global agendas, namely the New Urban Agenda, Sustainable Development Goals and the Nationally Determined Contributions towards climate change mitigation also demand actions in the cities. The traditional urban planning approach, based on master/development planning, and stemming from it, urban planning education, is highly technocratic and unable to deal with the reality of development challenges. In addition, urban planning education in India suffers from over-regulation and standardization, which leaves educational institutions devoid of innovation. Thus, for urban planning education to be relevant in India there is a need to revise and broaden the scope of the urban planning profession, non-standardize its contents, pay attention to substantive aspects including issues of equity and sustainability, have a future-facing approach towards dealing with climate change and rethink its pedagogic methods. However, for these changes to occur, urban planning educational institutes must take the lead and initiate radical reforms in country’s higher education regulatory system.

COVID-19: Urban Vulnerability and the Need for Transformations

The urban–rural divide in India has been the cause of labour flow to Indian cities, which have historically witnessed an insufficiency in planning. Moreover, widening social inequalities exacerbate the living conditions in Indian cities, pushing the migrant labourers from rural areas to the margins of urban spaces. Public policymakers have long turned a blind-eye to migrants, denying them essential social security. This study attempts to review how these factors have made urban space unwelcome to migrants from rural areas, edging them to a state of inability to sustain themselves, especially amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also an attempt to re-evaluate the status of urbanization. The government imposed a sudden lockdown in 2020 to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, leading to a massive exodus of migrants from cities back to their homes. The study also seeks to account for the significance of economic planning and social security with regard to migrant labour.

Urban Flood Risk Assessment and Development of Urban Flood Resilient Spatial Plan for Bhubaneswar

Urban flooding is growing as a serious development challenge for cities. Urbanization demands the conversion of pervious land to impervious land by pushing the transformation of water bodies, flood plains, wetlands and green spaces into built-up spaces. This affects the hydrological setting of the city’s geographic area. Bhubaneswar, one of the first planned cities of independent India, has expanded rapidly with an increase in the settlement land use cover from 41 km2 to 81 km2 in the last two decades. Non-consideration of disaster risk assessment in the land use plan has placed the city at high disaster risk. Hence, this article explores various avenues for making a flood resilient city through spatial planning. To understand the flood and its consequences, a flood hazard and vulnerability map was prepared by overlaying the existing social and infrastructure networks, and flood risk zones were generated through analytical spatial modelling in GIS. This accounts for the areas in which flood hazards are expected to occur, as well as the area whose socio-economic and infrastructure susceptibility to the disaster is more. The key outcome is to ensure urban development that can work concurrently with nature by integrating disaster risk reduction strategies into land use planning.