Urban form in Canada at a small-area level: Quantifying “compactness” and “sprawl” with bayesian multivariate spatial factor analysis

Quantifying urban forms to explore urban compactness or sprawl has become increasingly popular in multiple fields in the past decades. However, previous studies predominantly analyze the multidimensional phenomenon at large-area levels such as metropolitan areas, concealing variations that probably occur at small-area levels. Canadian studies measuring urban forms are usually conducted at the regional level with inconsistent indicators and approaches, hindering meaningful comparisons of compactness or sprawling between different regions. This study bridges a previous gap by applying Bayesian multivariate spatial factor analysis to construct a new composite urban compactness index for all Census Tracts (CT) in Canada. Nine urban form indictors representing four dimensions, density, centering, land use, and street connectivity are used in developing the index. Posterior probability is used to detect CTs that are most compact or sprawling. Results indicate that gross population and employment densities best characterize urban compactness at the CT level while land-use mix is the least central indictor to define the multi-faceted concept. Notable differences of urban compactness are detected across Canada and among different Census Metropolitan Areas (CMA). The most compact CTs usually locate in downtown or city center areas of a CMA. Larger and more populous CMAs, which also capture a larger extent of periphery areas, are not necessarily more compact and vice versa, suggesting the need to measure local variations of urban compactness. The constructed composite index allows direct urban compactness comparisons across different Canadian regions. Findings from this study can be used to guide smart and sustainable urban development in Canada.

Revisiting the Urban Question in the Age of the New Urban Crisis: The (Re)Production of the Regime of Flexible Accumulation

Scholars have recently remarked upon the emergence of what Richard Florida has termed The New Urban Crisis, a global phenomenon whereby cities are being lumped into winners and losers, with inequality rising in the winner cities where real estate prices are pushing out those who most need access to the opportunities hoarded within. In this article, I argue that the new urban crisis is not a crisis of the city per se but is itself a symptom of greater crises occurring at the level of global capitalism. By revisiting Castells’ The Urban Question, I read the new urban crisis as a product of how the urban social structure fits into the reproduction of capitalism on a global scale, arguing that, under the regime of flexible accumulation, the urban social structure is asked to reproduce two distinct circuits of capital accumulation set loose by the transition to post-industrialism: accumulation via production and accumulation via finance. These distinct circuits of accumulation utilize the elements of urban social structures differentially, often at cross purposes. This produces continued crises in the reproduction of capitalism, as well as continually shifting relations between elements of the urban social structure, producing a plurality of urban forms.

ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE URBANIZATION OF THE NATIONAL THEATRE IN LONDON THROUGH CHANGE OF USE AND FUNCTIONS OF ARCHITECTURE

The human population is currently on the rise and most Europeans live in urban areas, leading to increased urbanization. The change comes with its challenges, as cities, architecture, and urban spaces need to become more fluid, multi-functional, and innovative. This paper examines whether a change of use of public spaces, and functions of architectural and urban forms, can be used as an element in the implementation of sustainable urbanization. The theoretical framework of this paper focuses on literature findings relating to identified key aspects such as innovative approaches in changes of use — recycling and upcycling, green infrastructure and financial aspects, concepts of “right of the place”, and public participation. These aspects are addressed on both theoretical and practical levels, with the National Theatre in London as a case study. Findings convey that the change of use of spaces can be utilized to achieve sustainable urbanization, together with the management of functions and uses of architectural and urban forms. However, further research is needed with various stakeholders to identify a solid and inherent database, as a foundation on which the most optimal urban spaces would emerge, by identifying new functions and uses of urban space and architecture.

The Topodiverse City: Urban Form for Subjective Well-Being

Research is now better than ever able to unveil how urban inhabitants’ movement, behavior and experiences relate to the urban forms in which they take place. Consequently, urban form might increasingly be able to function as a focal point for different strands of research that focus on sustainable urban life, and as a link between research and planning practice through the development of empirically informed design principles. Drawing on literature from urban morphology, complex systems analysis, environmental psychology, and neuroscience, I provide a wide-angle view of how urban form relates to subjective well-being through movement, social and economic activity, experiences and psychological restoration. I propose three principles for urban form that could promote subjective well-being while also mitigating the environmental impact of cities in industrialized societies. The principles revolve around so-called topodiversity, meaning variation across an urban area in spatial conditions that allows subjective well-being to be promoted through several different pathways. The principles together suggest an urban form that I call the topodiverse city. The topodiverse city displays a polycentric structure and is more spatially contained than the sprawling city, yet not as compact as the dense city. I also propose indicators to measure the principles using mostly openly available data and analysis methods, to further research on how urban form can enable urban subjective well-being with low environmental impact.

Cities and Climate Change

This review paper considers the disjuncture between the rapid pace of climate change and the more sluggish ability of cities to fully implement effective strategies of climate change adaptation and mitigation. We will refer to this as the ‘slow city–quick climate change’ dilemma. Climate change is accelerating, quickly rendering obsolete previous urban forms inadequate, while structural adjustments to cities are slower moving. Cities around the world were largely built for previous climate regimes. In the short to medium term, there is a mismatch between the climate regime that cities were designed for and the climate regime they now inhabit. The paper is divided into four parts: a brief review of climate change in general; climate change in cities; a review of climate change adaptation and mitigation in cities; and finally, a discussion of urban futures in the time of climate regime change.

Footprinting New Zealand urban forms and lifestyles

<p>More than 90% of New Zealand’s ecological footprint results from the lifestyle choices of individuals, although the size and impact of their lifestyle footprint depends on the type of urban form in which they live. The aim of this research is to highlight the degree to which New Zealanders are living beyond their fair earth share and how this appears through lifestyles. As the population continues to increase and resources become scarce, it is vital that both governments and communities have effective resource accounting tools to inform further urban development, given its influence on resource use. The thesis highlights how urban form could reduce barriers to people’s future wellbeing and it identifies the types of lifestyles that support a shift towards lower footprint living. To understand how the ecological footprint of New Zealand’s communities is generated by a combination of the community members’ lifestyle choices and interaction with their urban form, the research comprised five steps. 1. Designing a footprint method and calculating local footprint yields for the New Zealand context. 2. Calculating the New Zealand footprint in nine categories: food and beverages, travel, consumer goods, holidays, household energy, housing, infrastructure, government and services. 3. Creating a calculator and survey, and collecting household footprint data from five New Zealand communities. 4. Processing data and analysing community results highlighting differences and similarities between them. 5. Using the community output creating fair earth share scenarios which highlight those footprint categories within each urban form that provide the best opportunity for reducing a community’s footprint. Throughout this project the ecological footprint has been an effective indicator which has provided the means to communicate complex environmental data in a simplified form to diverse groups. The project used the ecological footprint to measure and communicate the trends that are putting pressure on the planet’s finite availability of land; a growing demand and the decreasing supply. It was found to be an effective communication tool for both communities and local government organisations that formed a way of discussing how to reduce their footprint in the future. Although many New Zealand lifestyles exist in a variety of types of urban form, some lifestyle types are more typical in certain urban forms. Food was found to be the predominant driver of a household’s footprint. Use of commercial land for growing, on-farm inputs and food processing made up the largest portion of the food footprint. Holidays and pets were also large contributors to an individual’s footprint. Due to the high amount of renewable energy that goes into producing New Zealand’s electricity, household energy was proportionally much less than found in similar international footprint case studies. The final scenarios show that fair earth share living in New Zealand is possible; some individuals are already doing it. However bringing about large-scale change will require collective community strategic planning, planning tools to develop resource efficient urban design, and immediate action.</p>

Footprinting New Zealand urban forms and lifestyles

<p>More than 90% of New Zealand’s ecological footprint results from the lifestyle choices of individuals, although the size and impact of their lifestyle footprint depends on the type of urban form in which they live. The aim of this research is to highlight the degree to which New Zealanders are living beyond their fair earth share and how this appears through lifestyles. As the population continues to increase and resources become scarce, it is vital that both governments and communities have effective resource accounting tools to inform further urban development, given its influence on resource use. The thesis highlights how urban form could reduce barriers to people’s future wellbeing and it identifies the types of lifestyles that support a shift towards lower footprint living. To understand how the ecological footprint of New Zealand’s communities is generated by a combination of the community members’ lifestyle choices and interaction with their urban form, the research comprised five steps. 1. Designing a footprint method and calculating local footprint yields for the New Zealand context. 2. Calculating the New Zealand footprint in nine categories: food and beverages, travel, consumer goods, holidays, household energy, housing, infrastructure, government and services. 3. Creating a calculator and survey, and collecting household footprint data from five New Zealand communities. 4. Processing data and analysing community results highlighting differences and similarities between them. 5. Using the community output creating fair earth share scenarios which highlight those footprint categories within each urban form that provide the best opportunity for reducing a community’s footprint. Throughout this project the ecological footprint has been an effective indicator which has provided the means to communicate complex environmental data in a simplified form to diverse groups. The project used the ecological footprint to measure and communicate the trends that are putting pressure on the planet’s finite availability of land; a growing demand and the decreasing supply. It was found to be an effective communication tool for both communities and local government organisations that formed a way of discussing how to reduce their footprint in the future. Although many New Zealand lifestyles exist in a variety of types of urban form, some lifestyle types are more typical in certain urban forms. Food was found to be the predominant driver of a household’s footprint. Use of commercial land for growing, on-farm inputs and food processing made up the largest portion of the food footprint. Holidays and pets were also large contributors to an individual’s footprint. Due to the high amount of renewable energy that goes into producing New Zealand’s electricity, household energy was proportionally much less than found in similar international footprint case studies. The final scenarios show that fair earth share living in New Zealand is possible; some individuals are already doing it. However bringing about large-scale change will require collective community strategic planning, planning tools to develop resource efficient urban design, and immediate action.</p>

The assessment of outdoor thermal comfort inside oasis settlements in North Africa - Algeria

Oasis settlements are the most common form in the Saharan regions of North Africa, identified by a strong harmony between urban forms and palm groves, which present the economic capital for these regions. On the other hand, these oases are significantly growing and impacting the people’s livelihood and thermal well-being, especially during summer season. This study aims at first to identify the close correlation between cultivated area (palm grove) and the built-up area throughout the Tolga Oasis Complex in Algeria, which is recognised by its palm groves and well-known as one of the largest oasis settlements of the Saharan regions in North Africa. Furthermore, the current work assesses the impact of palm groves by investigating the ‘oasis effect’ on the thermal heat stress levels during July and August daytime hours within 9 conducted stations. Suprisingly, the so-called oasis effect generated by palm groves was insignificant during the extreme hot days. On the other hand, the palm groves were extremly hot affected by a warming effect during daytime hours.

From ‘Orthogonal’ Sprawl to ‘Curvilinear’ Dense: Assessing Accessibility Indices for Urban Networks of Social Housing in UAE

The shift towards designing more dense urban social housing neighbourhoods has started with the embracing of urban sustainability principles by the UAE government since the beginning of the 21st century. The assessment of the recent neighbourhoods designs still lacks concrete evidence about their expected performance especially for pedestrian mobility networks. This concern is gaining further significance with the noticeable tendency of most of the recent urban designs towards developing organic and curvilinear networks instead of the conventional orthogonal grids of the mobility networks that distinguished the traditionally designed neighbourhoods in the country. To bridge this gap, the research comparatively and quantitively analysed the accessibility performance indicators of both of the traditional and the modern urban network designs. The research adopted the Case Study method with quantitative investigation tools that are fundamental to Urban Network Analysis, especially in relation to Accessibility. The simulation of the urban networks of two selected urban social housing neighbourhood forms, representing the networks of both the traditional urban orthogonal sprawl and the recent curvilinear dense one, were utilized employing the UNA toolbox. Three complementary Accessibility Indices were analysed including: Reach, Gravity and Straightness. Through this analysis, the aspects that affected the accessibility performance of the two urban form paradigms and the problems that have been associated with the designs of the urban networks of the new social housing projects, have been revealed. It became evident that the denser urban form was not sufficient in enabling more accessible facilities in the recent neighbourhoods designs. The orthogonal grid, even with its very low Floor Area Ratio showed better performance of in the three accessibility indices especially the Straightness index, if compared with the much denser curvilinear grid with it ‘naturally longer’ pattern. The inefficient number and the inappropriate distribution locally provided facilities in relation to the pedestrian mobility networks have contributed to these disappointing results. So, it is essential to include this and/or similar urban network quantitative simulation tools to help develop genuinely sustainable urban forms for this significant type of urban development in the UAE cities.

Pedestrian Paths as an Indicator of Legibility Aspects of Omani Traditional Settlements

The interest for studying the Omani built heritage is not recent. However, the published research about the subject since the early 1970s, is limited in number and sporadic in topics and territories investigated. Moreover, there was no or little interest in examining this built heritage from the point of view of its urban design typologies. This paper is examining the urban form of these settlements and linking it with legibility aspects. Legibility and its influence on users of urban spaces have been significant for many theorists in urban studies. In their point of view, behaviour patterns of pedestrians are strongly influenced by legibility perception of the spatial patterns in urban spaces. The current research aims at studying the legibility aspects of traditional Omani residential settlements in an objective evaluation represented by numerical approach. Through a descriptive and analytical method, the results will link the influence of urban forms with legibility and behaviour patterns of pedestrians, which are deeply affected by the perception of body and mind. The paper explored paths’ forms influence on legibility perception of pedestrian in some of traditional settlements in Oman that have a strong urban identification. Five case studies representing traditional Omani settlements were chosen and analysed with an innovative quantitative approach capable of discovering, evaluating deficiencies, and suggesting solutions to develop local concepts for paths in any of urban settlements. The findings disclose that the contest to adopt international approaches to solve local urban spaces has created pointless, despicable, and unused spaces, while adopting local patterns, features and solutions will enhance the legible image of local urban settlements.