2022 Space for Species : Redefining Spatial Justice, Tartu 25 - 29th July

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Open Access
A Comparative Analysis Analysis of Urban Temperature (Air/Surface) and Heat Island Intensity Using S·Dot and Landsat8 in Seoul of South Korea
(AESOP, 2022) Lee, Jae-Jun; Kim, Dae-Hye; Woong-Kyoo, Bae
More than half of the world's population lives in cities, and according to the United Nations, about 70% of the world's population will live in urban areas by 2050, given the current trajectory of urban growth. (United Nations, 2010) The growth of these cities causes climate change and aggravates abnormal weather phenomena such as heatwaves. This heatwave phenomenon causes the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon, which is one of the phenomena that occurs with the progress of urbanization, which refers to a phenomenon in which the air and surface temperature in the downtown area are higher than in the surrounding areas. (JA Voogt TR Oke, 2003) The UHI phenomenon worsens the urban environment, such as heatwaves and tropical nights, and threatens the life and health of urban residents. As a result, about 50% of the population is concentrated in the metropolitan area, which is about 10% of the national land area, and various urban problems such as an imbalance in national land development and the UHI phenomenon are occurring mainly in the metropolitan area. As a result, the average outdoor temperature was 13.5℃ in the 2019s, 1.1℃ higher than in the 1960s, and it is a continuous increase. It affects the climate change and the natural environment of downtown areas, impairs the quality of the urban environment, and threatens the health of urban residents. If the city's temperature continues to rise and climate change and destruction of the natural environment intensify, the quality of the urban environment may be compromised, which will endanger the health and life of city residents. Accordingly, from 2020, through the Smart Seoul Urban Data Sensor (S·DoT) construction project, the city of Seoul is building an industrial ecosystem using policies and city data to solve urban problems and improve citizens’ lives. Therefore, this study aims to present the possibility of using urban data sensors (S·DoT) by examining the temperature of Seoul and the surface temperature data of LANDSAT8, calculating and comparing the thermal island intensity of the air temperature and the surface temperature.
Open Access
Adaptive Governance for Health and Social Equity : A Case Study of Hangzhou's Xiaoying Alley
(AESOP, 2022) Luo, Yinglu; Zhang, Yalan
By 2050, 68% of the world's population will be living in cities (United Nations, 2019). The sprawl of cities has raised concerns about environmental pollution, health inequalities, and many other health issues (Burris et al., 2007; Corburn, 2009). Governance is generally considered as the interaction and decision-making process in which government, market, and civil society work together to deal with public affairs (Rhodes, 1997; Healey, 2006), and identified to be an important approach in health promotion and health inequality issues (Kickbusch & Buckett, 2010). To address various health challenges, there has been an increasing number of studies in recent years that focus on how urban governance can be adapted in the health domain. Existing research is mainly rooted in Western countries, with less discussion on China's system and focuses mainly on the macro level, with a lack of attention to grassroots communities. This paper explores the adaptive governance process of a Chinese community in the health domain to bridge the gap. Adaptive governance originated in the field of environmental governance field as a strategy for regulating the social conflict in the management of complex ecosystems and aims to examine how different agents respond to highly complex and rapidly changing governance contexts (Chaffin et al., 2014; Folke et al., 2005). This paper conducts a case study based on the Xiaoying Alley community in Hangzhou. In 1958, Chairman Mao Zedong inspected the Patriotic Health Campaign in Xiaoying Alley, and since then the community has been famous for its health promotion work in China for a long time and was approved as a healthy community by the World Health Organization in 2013. The poor built environment and aging population bring many challenges to the community's health governance, and there are more health inequities than in other communities. The case study helps us understand how grassroots communities in the Chinese context mobilize a variety of actors to govern from a relatively poor conditions to promote health and reduce health inequities. This paper employs a policy arrangement framework to examine the characteristics of its health governance mode and its shifts in different phases and summarizes the main findings of this paper.
Open Access
Affordable Overnight Lodging in High-Cost, High-Need Coastal Environments
(AESOP, 2022) Riggs, William
Over the past 40 years, one of the strongest dialogues in the West has been the call to protect environmental resources, particularly access to the coastal environment. For example, in the mid-1970s the State of California created the Coastal Commission / Conservancy to protect, restore, and provide public access to California’s world-renowned coastal environment and marine resources. The California Coastal Commission (“CCC”) oversees all coastal development, manages habitat restoration and protection, and governs natural resource use. Coastal areas Section 30213 of the California Coastal Act (Division 20 of the California Public Resources Code) requires the CCC to protect, encourage, and, where feasible, provide for lower cost overnight visitor accommodations (“LCOVA”) along the State’s coast. As a mitigation measure per Section 30213, the CCC typically requires hotel and other development projects to include LCOVA facilities on-site, off-site, or pay an in-lieu fee. Despite such measures, the market has produced few LCOVA facilities along the California coastline. The supply of LCOVA facilities has not kept pace with demand, and as a result, coastal lodging facilities remain unaffordable to many Californians. Section 31104.1, Division 21 of the California Public Resources Code maintains the California State Coastal Conservancy (“SCC”) may, "accept dedication of fee title, easements, development rights, or other interests in lands, including interests required to provide public access to recreation and resources areas in the coastal zone."
Open Access
Age Structure, Residential Density and Housing Quality : Using Citizen Hotline Data to Understand Community Conflicts in Shanghai
(AESOP, 2022) Hou, Li; Zhu, Wei; Zhang, Yiyi; Chen, Xin
Community conflicts make communal life complete. From the perspective of urban governance, mitigating neighbourhood conflicts and creating a harmonious society are key duties for administration at the grass roots. As for residents, community conflicts add chaos to everyday life. And sometime, as Crenson (1983) found, they also create community bonds. All of this means that community conflicts play an important role in shaping community life. So, what factors influence the occurrence frequency and content characteristics of community conflicts, and further to say, how they function? This has been a question of great interest to urban managers, community planners and residents. Both in terms of social structure and spatial pattern, urban communities are diverse and heterogeneous, which is becoming more so as urban economic growth and population mobility accelerate. Neighbouring communities may have vastly different spatial characteristics and environmental qualities, housing families with a wide range of occupations, educational backgrounds, and income levels, as well as access to wholly distinct property management. In varied urban communities that carry an increasing number of social affairs, it is crucial to critically examine the patterns of community conflict and governance, contradiction and change. However, the problems that arise between neighbours have not received the academic scrutiny they deserve (Cheshire and Fitzgerald, 2015). To deal with the growing complexity of community governance, the purpose of this research is to explore how community characters affect the intensity and types of neighbourhood conflicts. For instance, what age and social structure of communities tend to have less conflicts? Is there a link between residential density and the frequency of community conflicts? How do community characteristics affect the main types of neighbourhood conflict in different ways? Is the planner's drive to develop a higher-quality, more diversified community space in a high-density setting of social value? Understanding the mechanisms of community conflicts will help us to comprehend cities and move towards Good Governance. Research into the patterns of community conflicts once relied on the analysis of traditional social statistics. For example, basing on self-reported neighbour problems across Brisbane, Australia, Cheshire and Fitzgerald (2015) observed how neighbourhood levels of concentrated disadvantage, residential mobility and population density all increase the chances of residents encountering a combination of nuisance and antisocial or criminal neighbour problems over nuisance problems
Open Access
Air Temperature CFD Simulation of Outdoor Space According to Height Change of Main Building of Apartment Complex
(AESOP, 2022) Song, Hyungi
The fact that abnormal temperatures and urban heat island phenomena are occurring all over the world has been revealed based on many existing studies. One of the causes of these abnormal temperatures and urban heat islands is human-induced urbanization. (Park Sang-wook, 2019) Nowadays, most cities in the world usually have temperatures between 1℃ and 4℃ higher than those in the surrounding rural areas, and the temperature increase in Korea is more than twice as fast as the average temperature in the world. In the past 100 years, global temperatures have risen by 0.74°C, the average temperature in the six major cities of the Republic of Korea has risen by 1.8°C, the precipitation has risen by 11.6m in the last 10 years, and the sea level by 10cm in 40 years Due to the recent realization of climate change, abnormal climates such as heatwaves, droughts, and cold waves are frequent and the damage is intensifying. The damage from the abnormal climate in Korea is concentrated in urban areas where more than 90% of the people live. (Ministry of Environment 2011) The reality is that apartment complexes, which account for a high proportion of residential buildings in urban areas today, are designed and built with quantitative development as priority, so the design to respond to climate change is insufficient. To this end, the thermal environment of the outdoor space of the apartment complex was analyzed by applying various types of design element types to the CFD simulation. Therefore, in this study, by simulating the microclimate environment of an apartment complex, the effect of temperature reduction in the complex according to the change in the height of the main building, a design element of the apartment complex, is to be analyzed in detail by using the CFD simulation program Envi-met.
Open Access
An Analysis on the Development Gap Between the North and the South in China Under the New Pattern: Characteristics, Causes and Countermeasures
(AESOP, 2022) Zhang, Xuchen
With the continuous development of China's economy and the entry of socialism with Chinese characteristics into a new era, the main social contradiction in China has been transformed into the contradiction between the growing needs of the people for a better life and the unbalanced and insufficient development. Regional economic disparity is an important manifestation of unbalanced development, a long-standing phenomenon in the process of China's economic development, and also the focus of continuous academic attention. With the continuous promotion of the "western development" and the "rise of central China" strategies, the economy of the western region has grown rapidly. In 2019, the economic growth of the western region will reach 10.17%, the total GDP will account for 20.8% of the country, and the imbalance between the East and the West will gradually decrease. In contrast, in the northern region, the economic development has been slow in recent years, and the GDP growth rate has declined rapidly, while the southern region still maintains a stable development trend. In 2019, the GDP growth in the North was negative, about 11 percentage points lower than that in the south. The regional development pattern at the national level has gradually changed, and the East-West imbalance has gradually shifted to the North-South imbalance, and the gap has gradually widened. The unbalanced development between the north and the South has gradually become a new problem facing China's regional development. So, what are the main aspects of the unbalanced development between the north and the south? What are the factors that cause these imbalances? What can be done to promote the coordinated development of North and South China? These will become the key issues to be discussed in the process of building a regional economic layout with complementary advantages and high-quality development during the "fourteenth five year plan" period. However, for a long time, the academic research has focused on the gap between the East, the middle and the west, including the analysis of the difference characteristics from the overall perspective, the factor perspective, the employee income perspective, and the analysis of the causes and relevant countermeasures from the perspectives of governance, system, economy . However, there are few studies on the unbalanced development of the north and South regions, and most of them are analyzed from a single factor. Therefore, this paper believes that at the key point of the opening year of the "fourteenth five year plan" period, it is necessary to comprehensively sort out the reality of the unbalanced development between the north and the South and analyze the influencing factors of the imbalance, so as to put forward optimization suggestions for narrowing the gap between the north and the South and promoting the coordinated development between the north and the south, in order to provide reference for the strategic decision-making of China's regional coordinated development.
Open Access
An Ecosystem Services Based Model for the Reclassification of Urban Uses in Plans : A Decision Support for the Minimisation of Soil Consumption
(AESOP, 2022) Adinolfi, Valentina; Coppola, Francesca; Grimaldi, Michele; Fasolino, Isidoro
Soil that is not artificially covered is capable of providing services with both direct and indirect benefits for humans. It is, therefore, essential to assess the impacts of different land-use and urban planning choices by estimating costs and benefits associated with different land-use scenarios and/or protection policies. The dimensioning of municipal urban plans (Puc) sets the urban load, in accordance with the regulations, with the provisions contained in the Provincial Territorial Coordination Plans (PTCP) and on the basis of a careful analysis of the community's actual and irrepressible needs. The possible transformations envisaged in the Pucs lead to two types of consequences: on the one hand, they constitute a potential income for the municipal coffers in terms of taxation on building land and buildings constructed and in terms of urbanisation charges; on the other hand, the transformation of the land entails the definitive loss of the numerous and very valuable Ecosystem Services (ES) that it is able to provide. These are defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005) as the multiple benefits provided by ecosystems to humankind and are divided into four categories: life support, provisioning, regulation and cultural values. A variety of approaches to assessing the ES provided by different land covers can be found in the literature. Some of them are based on matrices that, based on the opinion of experts (such as physical geographers, forest scientists and environmental engineers), associate each land cover class with a score related to the level of performance offered by each ES (Costanza et al., 1997; De Groot, 2010; Burkhard et al., 2012; Rodriguez, Armenteras & Retana, 2015; Santolini et a., 2015). The change in land cover from its natural state to artificial cover is technically termed land consumption. Forms of consumption range from total loss of the soil resource to partial loss of ES functionality. urban densification is also a form of land consumption insofar as it involves the introduction of new artificial cover in urban areas (Munafò, 2021). Zeroing net soil consumption means, therefore, avoiding the sealing of agricultural and open areas and, for the residual component that cannot be avoided, compensating it by renaturalising an area of equal or greater extent in order to restore its capacity to provide ES (EC, 2016). When considering soil as a resource, it is necessary to distinguish between land cover and land use. The term land cover refers to the biophysical cover of the earth's surface, while land use refers to the actual biophysical state of the soil, related to its use in human activities. The latter is, therefore, defined according to the present and planned functional dimension and urban use (Directive 2007/2/CE). A change of land use (and even less a change of land use provided for by a town planning instrument) may not alter the functions of the land and its capacity to provide SE and, therefore, not represent real land consumption. «The relationship between land consumption and population dynamics confirms that the link between demography and urbanisation and infrastructural processes is not direct and there is a growth of artificial surfaces even in the presence of stabilisation, in many cases decrease, of residents» (Munafò, 2021: 45). From this, the importance of correctly sizing Pucs, carefully balancing the need for new areas for human activities with the preservation of ES, aiming to achieve settlement efficiency (Fasolino, Coppola & Grimaldi, 2020).
Open Access
Analysis of Urban Space Vitality Based on Weibo Check-In Data : A Case Study of Suzhou
(AESOP, 2022) Ma, Geng; Pellegrini, Paola
The city is a carrier of all kinds of residents' activities and the core of public activities. With the rapid process of urbanization in China, the spatial structure of cities has been spreading, and in some cities, urban space has been redefined due to the construction of new districts and new cities, and the urban spatial structure has gradually evolved from a single center to a multicenter. In urban planning practice, multicentricity has become one of the common planning tools in major cities in recent years, and mega cities in China such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen all take multicentricity as the goal of urban development. The research on urban spatial structure in China mainly involves: theoretical studies, studies on the characteristics of urban spatial structure patterns, studies on the relevance of urban structure to social problems, and the exploration of the relevance of urban structure to social economy. The current stage of research mainly explores the spatial structure of cities by using planning and census data as the main data source and geospatial and morphological analysis as the method. However, these data have certain limitations, one of which is that the data accuracy is not sufficient to analyze the urban residents' aggregation within urban space at all scales, and the other is that the data are not real-time and cannot reflect the mobility characteristics of urban residents. In recent years, with the development of information technology, big data has provided new data sources for urban spatial analysis. Among them, the more widely used are: social network pictures, night lighting data, shared bicycle travel data, heat map data, cell phone signaling data, and online taxi travel data, etc. Scholars such as Ying Long, Lu Yu, and Zhiying Li have used these data to analyze urban space. However, these data have problems such as difficulty of access and few access channels for scholars. And the open-source Weibo check-in data provides a reliable alternative. Weibo check-in data records the check-in information of Sina Weibo users, which mainly includes information such as check-in time, check-in content, spatial location of check-in points, and the number of check-ins at check-in points. The Weibo check-in data can be obtained through an API interface, which is easier to obtain compared with the other data which has mentioned before, and has been widely adopted in the current stage of urban spatial research. At present, domestic scholars mainly use Weibo check-in data as a measurement of foot traffic in various spaces and as a method to identify urban functional areas, but less research has been conducted on urban spatial vitality with this kind of big data.
Open Access
Beyond global gains and local pains - Spacial inequality of Hinterland logistics
(AESOP, 2022) Nefs, Merten
Trade infrastructure and logistical activities have long been a source of prosperity as well as nuisance. The gains and pains of logistics, however, are not distributed equally across regions and cities. Important trade hubs such as Rotterdam or Chicago have built strong trade institutions and accumulated urban wealth, hereby making a successful trade-off between the global gains of trade and the local pains of congestion and pollution (Cronon, 1991; Kuipers et al., 2018). Since the rise of global supply chains, such hubs have grown beyond their city boundaries and formed logistical hinterlands. These extensive areas appear to represent a less favourable trade-off between gains and pains, judging by the increasing criticism against distribution centre developments, regarding landscape degradation, congestion (CRa et al., 2019) and precarious jobs (Bergeijk, 2019). In the hinterland of Rotterdam, the building footprint of logistics has increased fourfold since 1980 (Nefs, 2022), while congestion and labour shortages have also increased steeply and the planning system has been decentralized, giving more responsibility to local governments (Nefs et al., 2022). This paper discusses whether hinterland logistics can be regarded as a spatial justice issue, and how this may be reflected in the local spatial planning discourse. The concept of spatial justice emerged in the early 1970s, when Harvey and other geographers applied Rawls' (1971) theory on fair distribution of gains and pains to planning, which has gained traction in recent years (Rocco and Newton, 2020; Soja, 2010). This not only relates to infrastructures and spaces, but also the distribution of “financial, environmental and social benefits and burdens issued from urban development.” (spatialjustice.blog) Since public goods and negative externalities such as noise are not equally distributed geographically, accessibility as well as proximity play an important role in a spatial justice discourse. As Bret (2018) explains, geographical scales used in such discourses should also be seen as social constructs, which may be used to legitimize the outsourcing of pains to other territories and not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) positions. The procedural aspects of spatial justice, or how a planning system may enhance the fair distribution of gains and pains, have been explored by Healey (1996) and Ostrom (2015). Moroni (2020) reminds us that distributive justice cannot cover the full range of social justice issues, since not all goods are scarce, divisible and transferable. This also applies to aspects discussed in this paper, such as e-commerce and nitrogen emissions. The Dutch planning system, rooted in democratic water and land management, often faces land scarcity in light of economic and ecological ambitions. It is therefore understood to have the necessary institutions and motivation to enhance spatial justice (Michels, 2006; Salet, 2018).
Open Access
Book of abstracts : Space for Species : Redefining Spatial Justice, AESOP annual congress, Tartu 25 - 29. 7. 2022
(AESOP, 2022) AESOP
Participatory mapping can be used both in transactional person-environment research and as a tool for participatory planning. In the presentation, I will give examples of both usage cases of online public participation GIS (PPGIS) methodology. PPGIS methodology is among the most widely spread, digital, place-based approaches used in real life public participation processes and in the study of transactional person-environment relationship. Maptionnaire is an advanced example of PPGIS methodology that was originally developed in Aalto University and today used in more than 40 countries. To learn in what kind of real life public participation projects the tool was used and to identify the pros and cons of using this methodology, we studied over 200 Maptionnaire cases. The analysis revealed that the studied planning projects varied in geographical scale stretching from nationwide surveys to those concerning single buildings. In terms of the project topics green and blue area planning and management projects together with transportation planning projects comprised over half of the cases. When studying at which phases of the planning project the tool was used, both extremes of the planning process stood out, early initiation and the evaluation phases. To identify the pros and cons of PPGIS approach, we asked whether PPGIS tools can (1) enhance effective arrangements of public participation, (2) reach a broad spectrum of people and 3) produce high quality and versatile knowledge. The results indicated a variety of advantages and disadvantages in using PPGIS methodology in participatory planning practice. By categorizing the pros and cons of using PPGIS in practice, we can enable planners to implement more inclusive and influential participatory planning. Place-based approach is not only fruitful in promoting smart participation but also in transactional person-environment research, where the active role of both persons and the contexts is considered. A wide variety of research themes have been studied, e.g. social sustainability, active living, ecosystem service accessibility, perceived safety and the everyday service networks & mobility patterns related to various lifestyles. Many different user groups have participated the online PPGIS studies including children and young people and the elderly. These studies produce contextually and individually sensitive evidence about the ways urban structural characteristics are associated with human experiences and behavioral patterns. By anchoring research findings to specific contexts and specific planning solutions, these research findings can become an essential part of knowledge informed planning. Planners, however, 59typically rely mostly on the explorative analysis of the PPGIS data. Deeper, diagnostic forms of analysis can potentially be very useful, to explain how urban structural characteristics are linked with human behavior and to predict usage patterns. The search for urban and transportation planning solutions that promote both human wellbeing and planetary health is among the key challenges of today. Place-based research strategy helps achieving a more realistic and context sensitive understanding of the human aspects in planning and helps solving some of the most wicked problems of our era
Open Access
Book of Proceedings : Space for Species: Redefining Spatial Justice : AESOP Annual Congress, Tartu 25 - 29. 7. 2022.
(AESOP, 2022) AESOP; Jürgenson, Evelin; Leetmaa, Kadri; Pastak, Ingmar; Grišakov, Kristi; Raagmaa, Garri; Tammis, Toomas; Põdra, Kätlin; Muru, Toomas; Metspalu, Pille; Sooväli-Sepping, Helen
Our motivation behind this title is to explore space in terms of all species, the environment in general as well as various territories and habitats, including different kinds of spaces as well, such as cultural spaces, for example. Under this title, we would unite the aspects of legislation and justice, technological solutions and developments, the concept of a smart city, considering the smart city infrastructure as a method for inclusion or exclusion. Although Estonia is small, the country and its landscape and cityscape are very versatile. The low population density has given rise to scattered urbanisation and planning also focuses on scattered areas. The title would enable to find a balance between the track topics that have remained throughout the congresses and new thematic sessions in order to promote interdisciplinarity and enable people from narrower planning research fields to come together to see the big picture, co-operation, the interrelations between areas and how things affect each other.
Open Access
Characteristics of Tod Guidance System and Enhancement Strategies in China
(AESOP, 2022) Ye, Dan
As urbanization progresses, the rapid growth of urban population size and the surge in demand for land will lead to continuous urban development and spatial expansion. In the last century, the motor-oriented development model adopted by many cities in Western developed countries has induced a series of urban problems [1, 2], including traffic congestion, air pollution, energy overload consumption, social differentiation and land waste. In this context, the concept of "New Urbanism", which advocates compact, high-density, diverse, mixed and sustainable development, has emerged [3, 4], of which Transit-oriented Development (TOD) is an important component. TOD is a type of urban development that maximizes the amount of residential, commercial, and recreational space within walking distance of public transportation; it emphasizes a close symbiotic nesting relationship between urban form and public transportation, and it is a concept that has been developed by the American architect Peter Calthorpe in his book The American Metropolis of the Future: Ecology-Community-American Dream. The TOD model has been used by many cities around the world [5-8] and has played a crucial role in promoting intensive urban development [9, 10], enhancing urban vitality and transportation synergy [9, 11, 12], and promoting low-carbon travel [1, 10]. Many cities in China are now vigorously developing urban public transportation to improve urban transportation services. It is urgent to explore how to scientifically guide the development of station areas, promote the efficient and high-quality construction of station-integration, improve the spatial quality and human-oriented experience of the city, and thus achieve sustainable urban development. Cities in North America have undergone a transformation from sprawling development to smart and intensive development, in which the TOD model has played a significant role. Therefore, this paper adopts an inductive and case study approach, firstly, to analyze the characteristics of the current TOD guidance system in China, and at the same time, to analyze the experience of North American cities in order to provide a reference for China's practice.
Open Access
Characteristics of Urban Settlements Impacting Migratory Bird Species in India
(AESOP, 2022) Panjwani, Ahefaz
On a broad level, India can be divided into six types of climate (Padmanabhamurthy, 1990) This in conjunction with the country being situated in three of the major global flyways, makes conservation of avian species highly essential. The different climates lead to rich diverse biomes where the migratory birds stop, nest, breed and progess on to their destinations. The grasslands and wetlands throughout the country make effective pitstops for landbirds and water birds alike. With massive urbanisation taking over, these ecological spaces are constantly encroached, leading to a decline in the native and migratory avian species. While there are different initiatives taken by the Indian Government such as the National Action Plan and the Perspective Plan on bird conservation, these are tentative guidelines with no legal binding on urban development. In reality, the National urban planning code (Urban and Regional Development Planning Framework of India) and the urban bye laws are devoid of biodiversity clauses. Optional frameworks such as the Indian Green Building Council guidelines mention incentivisation for preserving nocturnal habitats and native vegetation. The absence of such guidelines in the Urban development norms make native vegetation an easy prey to development and loss of habitat for birds.
Open Access
Cinematic Open Spaces of Flanders : Spatial Planning and the Imagination of Flemish Open Space in the Fiction Films Bullhead and Kid
(AESOP, 2022) Staessen, Annelies
Who does not know An Inconvenient Truth (Guggenheim & Gore, 2006)? Most people remember this as the title of a documentary film about global warming. Even people who did not see one image of it, know the film raised international public awareness on the subject. In fact, according to various studies (Butts, 2007; Jacobsen, 2011), awareness of climate change translates into behavioral change and in carbon offsets after watching the documentary. In any case, the film and its narrative concerning climate change and its consequences set things in motion. When coping with the effects of climate change in Flanders (northern region of Belgium), open space is considered to be primordial. In a densely populated and highly urbanized region such as Flanders, open spaces are crucial to retain water in the event of drought or sudden rains, to provide biodiversity and natural resources, raw materials, food production, and more. Although open space is of vital importance, it lacks a strong narrative. The concept or definition of open space remains often as diffuse and fragmented as its appearance in this so-called ‘rurban’ area, the blurred zone of urban and rural. Morphological differentiation with open spaces as the opposite of the city determined traditional planning discourses of the last 45 years (Leinfelder, 2007). However, this dichotomous planning model, urban development versus conservation of open space, has lost its relevance as the Flemish countryside is also characterized by urban sprawl. The building pattern takes 33% of the total land cover and is scattered over the area without concentration in big metropoles, leaving the remaining open spaces fragmented between the built-up plots. For a long time, open space was considered as the unbuilt area or residual space, which remained after all other developments and served as potential ground for agriculture or residential expansion. Similarly, comprehension of open space based on functional frameworks in terms of land use and land cover is equally incomplete and does not fully grasp the complex spatial mix of functions. The basic principle for open space is then the unsealed or non-built condition of land units by any unnatural cover. Consequently and according to this interpretation, open space coincides almost exclusively with nature and/or agriculture, the two major conventional land use categories. The increase of newcomers in land use and the transformation into hybrid ‘rurban’ spaces with mixed and multifunctional uses as urban agriculture, private gardens, horse meadows, etc., abolishes this categorization. (Brandt & Vejre, 2004; Dewaelheyns, Vanempten, Bomans, Verhoeve, & Gulinck, 2014; Wilson, 2007) Moreover, these transformations consolidate the inefficient spatial organization which is accompanied with economic and ecological problems. Prices for farmlands rise as the non-agricultural functions increase in agricultural areas, the cost for construction and maintenance of road and utility infrastructure is seven times more in a dispersed settlement pattern compared to concentrated city centers (VITO, (Vermeiren et al., 2019), traffic jams on these roads as a result of high frequency of daily commuting movements, are only a few examples of economical damage. Furthermore, this spatial organization, with amongst others this high amount of road infrastructure and traffic jams, also generates an ecological impact. Spaces for nature disappear as paved areas provide further development.
Open Access
Culture, Productive Heritage and Spatial Development
(AESOP, 2022) Scaffidi, Federica
Culture is an important driver of innovation for heritage management and spatial development. In recent years, many scholars have analysed this phenomenon to understand the effects on the territory (Dodd, 2020). Culture indeed has a transformative ability to create new flows and growth in the urban space. It positively affects the enhancement of local resources, and promotes social interaction and community spaces (Clark & Wise, 2018). In recent years, much attention has been given to the creative regeneration of marginalised heritage, such as productive heritage (Areces, 2005; Scaffidi, 2021). In Europe there are many cases that have recycled disused heritage through art and culture. At the heart of the debate are innovative communities, where cultural initiatives, art exhibitions, alternative forms of education and cooperation keep heritage alive. These are places often managed by social enterprises that involve citizens and local governments. These innovative social enterprises indeed promote the creative reactivation of neglected assets through cultural activities, services, and community involvement. Numerous studies have shown that these centres are able to create open and inclusive urban spaces (Scaffidi 2021; Schröder, 2018). They foster moments of debate and social interaction (Walker et al. 2004). These cultural enterprises aim to innovate in the art sector with new management models that promote culture, through social innovation practices. Many policies have been developed to support these enterprises to enhance local assets (Cerreta et Al., 2021). They promote a more open governance that includes stakeholders in decision-making processes, which innovates the development of assets culturally, socially, economically and environmentally. The research aims to discuss the importance of innovative cultural centres for the development of cities and the reactivation of underused heritage. Considering this purpose, the research examines specific examples where socio-cultural actions have been the driving force behind the creative regeneration of productive assets and spatial innovation. Today, creativity is an important factor in urban transformation. Culture enhances the innovative capacities of a society and plays a relevant role in spatial reactivation. The socio-cultural dimension is explicitly expressed in some examples of heritage reactivation.
Open Access
Dwelling Decay : Housing Crisis, Urban Institutionalism and its Understanding of the Qualitative Shortage past, present and Future of Chile's Urban Housing Policy for the Improvement of Quality and Social Integration (2006 -2021)
(AESOP, 2022) Hernández, Karen Saavedra
Since 2006, Chilean housing policy has undergone a paradigm shift by focusing its attention on improving the quality of the urban housing stock. At that time, it was considered that the quantitative housing shortage had a certain degree of control from the state and institutions, with a sustained decrease compared to the Latin American context. However, since 2017, the housing shortage has shown a worrying increase, currently reaching its highest point since the return to democracy in the 1990s. With a current housing shortage of 739,603 dwellings, representing almost 12% of the total national housing shortage and affecting almost 2.2 million people, 12% of the national population, there is talk of a new housing crisis in Chile. Migratory and economic crises and the current COVID-19 pandemic add to the various factors that attempt to explain this increase in the housing shortage. However, this crisis is not only a housing shortage crisis, but also a crisis of quality and the persistence of housing and urban environment decay, which, despite an institutional policy to improve urban and housing quality that has been in existence for two decades, has not managed to reduce the gap. In this sense, the current housing shortage can be understood not only from the perspective of the quantity of missing housing, but also as a crisis exacerbated by the quality of the housing and urban stock built. In this sense, institutional factors have not been particularly highlighted as possible causes or aggravators of the housing conflict, in the sense of understanding how the institutional framework has perceived the urban decay and housing shortages. This article seeks to analyse how the Chilean urban-housing institutional framework has been modelling, through plans and programmes, its Urban Housing Policy of Improving the Quality and Social Integration of Chile, in the period between 2006, the year of the paradigmatic shift from housing quantity to housing quality, and 2021, when the housing shortage crisis was declared, as a way of understanding from where the institutions have epistemologically positioned themselves to generate the response to the housing shortage, with special emphasis on the quality shortage. It is hypothesised that Chilean urban and housing institutions, through their policy of quality improvement, have shifted the focus from subsidiarity to the understanding of housing deterioration, reflecting in interventions that, although they have a narrative in line with the search for quality, are based on proposals of extreme social targeting and lack of territorial relevance, the same principle under which the model of mass housing construction was developed in previous decades. Through documentary and bibliographic analysis, the history of Chile's Urban Housing Policy of Improving Quality and Social Integration is reconstructed, under which a series of programmes and plans have been organised to address the qualitative urban-housing shortage. This historiographic analysis allows us to understand where the Chilean institutional framework has been situated to address the quality shortage of its existing urban-housing stock, through various milestones of the national housing policy that reveal conflicts, rigidity, and institutional centralism, which in turn hinder the recognition of cultural and territorial diversity in the interventions. This article, as part of an ongoing doctoral research, hopes to be a contribution to the critical review of the policy of qualitative housing shortage, given that Chile has been a reference at the international level with its subsidised policy of access to social housing in previous times and that today, in the context of a new global housing crisis, the institutional responses address the crisis not only as a matter of quantity, but also in a comprehensive manner.
Open Access
E-participation in slum upgrading facilitating the establishment of a locally rooted livable life index to guide slum upgrading
(AESOP, 2022) Eicker, Berrit Neele
Over the years, the term participation has become an integral part in the context of urban planning. Its importance has been acknowledged in the improvement of various aspects: relationship building between governments and citizens, stronger levels of democracy and decision-making processes, among others. Several typologies of participation have been derived from Arnstein’s influential “ladder of participation”. In order to pay closer attention to who is participating, in which context and for whose benefit, further steps need to achieve clarity through specificity, if the call for e-participation is to fulfil its democratizing promise. While some forms of citizen participation, such as consultation rely on the relevance of knowledge and opinions shared by citizens, a collaborative activity, such as the LLI, depends more on the quality of data provided by the participants. The LLI views slum dwellers as decisive stakeholders with expert knowledge about their neighbourhood. Their contribution is solely considered in the definition of locally rooted liveable life indicators to form a LLI. A detailed typology of e-participation might allow a more specific analysis of the causal links between different forms of participation and their specific outcomes. upgrading. So far, the concept is based on an analogue approach, developed within the Smart City Bhubaneswar (India). The expansion of ICT in Smart Cities to an e-participation initiative in form of a digital LLI has the potential to disseminate policy planning information and solicit citizen's inputs in planning. Still, the success of an e-participation initiative depends on the careful selection of the best-matching techniques and ICT tools.
Open Access
Green Space Availability and Onset Risk of Covid-19 in Hong Kong: A Spatial Justice Perspective
(AESOP, 2022) Jian, Izzy Yi; Siu, Kin Wai Michael; Yao, Terry Yepeng
As concerns arise about the impacts of urban environments on health outcomes and healthy lifestyles, urban researchers are increasingly investigating the associations between the built environment and public health (Ha et al., 2022, Luo et al., 2022). Public Green spaces (PGS) offer various ecosystem services to city dwellers. The literature generally endorses the view that exposure to natural environments, especially green spaces is vital, for its evidenced benefits to people’s health and well-being both through active participation and as a salutogenic environment (Nutsford et al., 2013) (Spotswood et al., 2021). Besides the distance to the nearest green space as a well-known factor, the health benefits of PGS, which has a lag effect and lasts for years (Wang et al., 2021), are also expected to be influenced by the usage frequency, duration, and intensity (Ha et al., 2022). The concept of spatial justice refers to the manifestation of the principle of justice in spatial production and the allocation of spatial resources (Soja, 2013). It is also concerned with PGS provision as one of the health resources. There was a groundswell of opinion that adequate access to green spaces is a common good for society that all citizens should equally benefit from. More accessible green spaces should be provided for building healthy cities in post-pandemic societies (Luo et al., 2022), although urban planners struggle to allocate UGS evenly (Jian et al., 2020). The outbreak of COVID-19 poses an unexpected threat to people’s health worldwide. As scientific models have demonstrated the effectiveness of social distancing restrictions on slowing down the transmission (Chen et al., 2022), a set of regulations to limit activities, particularly the free use of PGS, are imposed (Pan et al., 2021). However, many studies conducted during the pandemic show that inequity in the amount of PGS people can access has the potential to translate into inequities in mental and physical health both during and beyond the pandemic (Spotswood et al., 2021). PGS can provide more benefits to vulnerable groups by offering stronger protective effects. Marginalised groups worldwide may expose to a higher risk of certain diseases than more privileged groups for being excluded from access to PGS, particularly those vulnerable groups who are always labelled with lower income and education levels, age, and gender minorities (Sikorska et al., 2020, Sillman et al., 2022). On the other hand, maintaining a safe distance is challenging in many outdoor areas, especially in increasingly dense urban environments. For instance, despite the number of PGS visitors being decreased at the beginning of the social-distancing restriction, people were reported to have a higher demand for using PGS during the pandemic due to the unavailability of other activities (Liu and Wang, 2021). It is predicted that the total park visitation may exceed the pre-COVID baseline (Geng et al., 2021). Meanwhile, as the recent evidence shows that exposure to airborne viruses further arises from human population movements between places, higher accessibility to PGS also corresponds to a higher risk of infection spread as using PGS further increase the opportunity for people to meet face to face (Pan et al., 2021). PGS in this sense might give rise to the number of new cases, and negatively contribute to managing the outbreak of the pandemic by providing chances for people to cluster and spread the disease (Yao et al., 2021). Eventually, the government needs to release the restrictions to allow citizens to return to “normal” lives. Since the relationship between the availability (i.e., amount and accessibility) of green spaces and covid-19 cases in compact cities remain insufficiently explored (Ha et al., 2022), this research attempts to explore whether PGS with higher availability is linked to higher COVID-19 case rates and whether the PGS access related to COVID-19 case rates is linked to people’s socio-demographic characteristics in compact urban environments. Following this introduction, this paper is divided into four parts. The first part provides a brief account of the PGS visitation during COVID-19, followed by a general discussion of spatial justice with health considerations. We then describe the methods used to answer our research questions. We outlined the patterns of uneven distribution of PGS and explored the relationships between the availability of PGS and the onset risk of covid-19. The final part presents and concludes our findings, and suggests implications for future studies.
Open Access
Heap developmentin the Ruhr metropolis : The "Mountains of the Ruhr" as places od identify
(AESOP, 2022) Budiger, Anne; Schmit, Hanna C.; Ze, Maria; Karulska, Olivia; Wenning, Tino
For decades, the Ruhr region in Germany was shaped by the coal mining industry. In the late 19th and early to mid-20th century, industrialization and accompanying urbanization processes turned small villages into large cities. In consequence, the Ruhr region became the largest industrial agglomeration in Europe with coal mines being both the main employer and an essential identity-forming feature. As of today, the Ruhr region has undergone another set of decades of structural change. Former industrial sites were re-cultivated and renaturated and by now, the region no longer understands itself as the ‘Ruhr region’ but as the ‘Ruhr Metropolis’. Within all the change, however, there is one constant – a special kind of place that remains: the heaps. As former collection points for coal mining overburden and the collieries’ slag, they are now the ‘Mountains of the Ruhr', a vital element of Green Infrastructure (GI) of the Ruhr Metropolis and still an anchor of identity for 5.1 million people. The regional planning authority of the Ruhr region, the Ruhr Regional Association (German: ‘Regionalverband Ruhr’ short RVR), is responsible for the preservation and development of open space and GI. Currently, the RVR develops 46 slag heaps and will take over several more in the near future (cf. Website RVR, 2022). The exciting challenge for the RVR is now to make the 'Mountains of the Ruhr' usable for the region’s inhabitants, to foster the ecological value of this special GI in the overall open space system and to bring together cultural preservation and strategic development. This paper offers insights into the transformation processes of the Ruhr region (see section 2), the change in identity of its slag heaps and the planning and development of heaps as an anchor of urban GI (see section 3). Recent findings on the narrative and place-making of heaps are presented, highlighting both the storyline for the ‘Mountains of the Ruhr’ and the individual character of the heaps (see section 3.3). Thus, this paper offers an empirical example of the shift in meaning of place, which creates identity, drives ecological restoration, and is one milestone of the green transformation of the Ruhr Metropolis (cf. RVR, 2021).
Open Access
How Can Neighbourhood Sustainability Assessment Tools Improve Urban Wellbeing?
(AESOP, 2022) Revellini, Rosaria
In the contemporary world we are facing four megatrends: population growth, population ageing, international migration and urbanization. All these trends interest both developed countries and developing ones, even if there are some differences and disparities among them. Moreover, they directly affect the sustainable development of nations and consequently have influence on people health and wellbeing. Paying attention on developed countries, and in particular on European (and Italian) cities, urbanization and population ageing are the two main issues to be considered. In fact, here the number of over 65 years old people is growing exponentially and in 2018 it has overpassed the number of under 5 children. In addition, elderly cohort will exceed the 15-24 one by 2050 (UN, 2019a). The number of people living in urban contexts will increase, reaching about 68% of the world population (UN, 2019b). This estimation means that cities and their public spaces have to be the core of the sustainable development to guarantee equity, health and wellbeing to the citizens. In fact, rapid urbanization exacerbates environmental problems, inadequate basic services, urban sprawl, differences in opportunities for people. For this reason, it is necessary to recognize the centrality of people in urban transforming processes by providing equal opportunities for all looking at 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and specifically to the 11th goal Making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable (UN, 2015). The purpose of this goal is to ensure access to housing and good public spaces and improve a more inclusive urban planning through adequate public transport and social cohesion. According to Fusco Girard (2006, p. 48) «the city that promotes sustainable human development is a city in which the human person, in the relational-community dimension is at the centre with its inalienable rights (health, quality environment, work, culture). It promotes integration from its neighbourhoods which reproduce a network of many micro-communities». Neighbourhood is the “ideal urban dimension” where innovation and public investments are possible. Therefore, this paper focuses on neighbourhood scale to look at health and wellbeing for people in urban contexts. Specifically, it aims to analyse some of the main Neighbourhood Sustainability Assessment (NSA) tools to underline whether and how the use of them can improve urban wellbeing recognising in social sustainability the key to do that.