Lin, Lin; Chen, Xueming (Jimmy); Moudon, Anne Vernez. (2021). Measuring the Urban Forms of Shanghai’s City Center and Its New Districts: A Neighborhood-Level Comparative Analysis. Sustainability, 13(15).
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Abstract
Rapid urban expansion has radically transformed the city centers and the new districts of Chinese cities. Both areas have undergone unique redevelopment and development over the past decades, generating unique urban forms worthy of study. To date, few studies have investigated development patterns and land use intensities at the neighborhood level. The present study aims to fill the gap and compare the densities of different types of developments and the spatial compositions of different commercial uses at the neighborhood level. We captured the attributes of their built environment that support instrumental activities of daily living of 710 neighborhoods centered on the public elementary schools of the entire Shanghai municipality using application programming interfaces provided in Baidu Map services. The 200 m neighborhood provided the best fit to capture the variations of the built environment. Overall, city center neighborhoods had significantly higher residential densities and housed more daily routine destinations than their counterparts in the new districts. Unexpectedly, however, the total length of streets was considerably smaller in city-center neighborhoods, likely reflecting the prominence of the wide multilane vehicular roads surrounding large center city redevelopment projects. The findings point to convergence between the city center's urban forms and that of the new districts.
Keywords
Quantifying Spatiotemporal Patterns; Fast-food Restaurants; Instrumental Activities; Physical-activity; Chinese Cities; Land; Schools; Redevelopment; Expansion; Transformation; Built Environment; Planning; Neighborhood; Urban Form; Shanghai
Wang, Lan; Zhang, Surong; Yang, Zilin; Zhao, Ziyu; Moudon, Anne Vernez; Feng, Huasen; Liang, Junhao; Sun, Wenyao; Cao, Buyang. (2021). What County-level Factors Influence Covid-19 Incidence in the United States? Findings from the First Wave of the Pandemic. Cities, 118.
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Abstract
Effective control of the COVID-19 pandemic via appropriate management of the built environment is an urgent issue. This study develops a research framework to explore the relationship between COVID-19 incidence and influential factors related to protection of vulnerable populations, intervention in transmission pathways, and provision of healthcare resources. Relevant data for regression analysis and structural equation modeling is collected during the first wave of the pandemic in the United States, from counties with over 100 confirmed cases. In addition to confirming certain factors found in the existing literature, we uncover six new factors significantly associated with COVID-19 incidence. Furthermore, incidence during the lockdown is found to significantly affect incidence after the reopening, highlighting that timely quarantining and treating of patients is essential to avoid the snowballing transmission over time. These findings suggest ways to mitigate the negative effects of subsequent waves of the pandemic, such as special attention of infection prevention in neighborhoods with unsanitary and overcrowded housing, minimization of social activities organized by neighborhood associations, and contactless home delivery service of healthy food. Also worth noting is the need to provide support to people less capable of complying with the stay-at-home order because of their occupations or socio-economic disadvantage.
Keywords
Pandemics; Covid-19; Covid-19 Pandemic; Infection Prevention; Stay-at-home Orders; Structural Equation Modeling; United States; Communicable Disease Prevention; Influential Factors; Lockdown; Structural Equation Modeling (sem); Prevalence; Disease; Healthy Food; Social Activities; Counties; Neighborhoods; Housing; Built Environment; Prevention; Minimization; Socioeconomic Factors; Intervention; Health Care; Vulnerability; Occupations; Coronaviruses; Food Service; Disease Transmission; United States--us
Cowling, Krycia; Lindberg, Ruth; Dannenberg, Andrew L.; Neff, Roni A.; Pollack, Keshia M. (2017). Review of Health Impact Assessments Informing Agriculture, Food, and Nutrition Policies, Programs, and Projects in the United States. Journal Of Agriculture Food Systems And Community Development, 7(3), 139 – 157.
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Abstract
Policies, programs, and projects related to agriculture, food, and nutrition can significantly affect public health. Health impact assessment (HIA) is one tool that can be used to improve awareness of the health effects of decisions outside the health sector, and increasing the use of HIA for agriculture, food, and nutrition decisions presents an opportunity to improve public health. This study identifies and reviews all HIAs completed in the United States on agriculture, food, and nutrition topics. Studies were identified from HIA databases, an Internet search, and expert consultation. Key characteristics were extracted from each study: type of decision assessed, location, level of jurisdiction, lead organization, methods of analysis, and recommendations. Twenty-five eligible HIAs that were conducted between 2007 and 2016 address topics such as regulations on land use for agriculture; food and beverage taxes; and developing grocery stores in food deserts. These HIAs have predominantly supported policy, as opposed to program or project, decisions. Four case studies are presented to illustrate in detail the HIA process and the mechanisms through which HIA findings affected policy decisions. Among other influences, these four HIAs affected the language of legislation and provided guidance for federal regulations. These examples demonstrate several findings: appropriate timing is critical for findings to have an influence; diverse stakeholder involvement generates support for recommendations; and the clear communication of feasible recommendations is highly important. There is substantial scope to increase the use of HIA in the agriculture, food, and nutrition sectors. Challenges include the paucity of monitoring and evaluation of HIAs' effects on health outcomes, and the limited funding available to conduct HIAs. Opportunities include integrating HIAs and community food assessments, and more widely sharing HIA findings to inform related decisions in different jurisdictions and to increase support for additional HIAs that address the food system.
Keywords
Environments; Obesity; Health Impact Assessment; Policy; Food; Nutrition; Agriculture
The Northwest Center’s mission is to enhance the livability of communities in the Pacific Northwest through applied research and outreach in the areas of land use planning, policy, and design; healthy communities; food security; and public participation and democracy.
The Center is a research and policy center focused on issues of environmental and economic sustainability, quality of life, and responsible governance using Washington as a model. Recognizing that the term “livability” has many different definitions and interpretations, the Center’s programs are focused on how the fields of urban planning and design, landscape architecture, and architecture work within this broader context to address livability factors.
The Center operates from the belief that the university should, in cooperation with state agencies, local governments, and community leaders, seek to improve existing social and environmental conditions through research and innovative policy development. It advocates development strategies that focus on smart and efficient land use, strong communities, high-wage, low waste jobs and economic development and public participation and accountability in government.
Edward David Blum has spent more than 40 years as a planner in both the public and private sectors. In the public sector, he has worked for state and county governments, Native American tribes and non-profit organizations. His work experience in the private sector includes managing the development of various commercial, residential, industrial, retail and marina projects throughout the United States. Mr. Blum has taught classroom and studio courses in New Jersey, Oregon and Washington with a focus on land use planning, affordable housing, economic development and sustainable urban mobility.
The Urban@UW initiative brings together labs that study urban issues from across the University of Washington. Urban@UW works with scholars, policymakers, and community stakeholders in order to strengthen the connection between research and solutions to urban issues through cross-disciplinary and cross-sector collaborative research. Key functions of Urban@UW include amplifying public awareness of ongoing projects, connecting researchers with outside constituencies, providing staff and administrative support services, and providing pilot funding and fundraising assistance. Multiple BE labs are involved, including the Northwest…
Dr. Jan Whittington is Associate Professor of the Department of Urban Design and Planning, at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her research applies transaction cost economic theory to networked infrastructures, such as transportation, water, and communications systems, to internalize factors historically treated as external to transactions. Her publications include methodologies for greenhouse gas mitigation and resilience through capital investment planning, examination of the efficiency of public-private contractual arrangements for infrastructure, and the evaluation of online transactions for efficiency, security, and privacy. At the University of Washington, she is the Director of the Urban Infrastructure Lab, Associate Director of the Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity, and Affiliate Faculty at the Tech Policy Lab. She teaches infrastructure planning and finance, public finance, infrastructure mega-projects, science for environmental policy, planning for water, and land use planning. Her PhD (2008) is in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was advised by economic Nobel laureate Oliver Williamson. Prior to her academic career, she spent 10 years with infrastructure giant Bechtel Corporation, as a strategic planner and environmental scientist. She holds bachelor degrees in Biology and Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz (1987). Her master’s degree is in City and Regional Planning, from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (1993).
Qing Shen is Professor of Urban Design and Planning and Chair and Director of the University of Washington Graduate School’s Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Urban Design and Planning. He holds a PhD in City and Regional Planning from University of California, Berkeley. Professor Shen’s primary areas of interest are urban economics and metropolitan transportation planning and policy. Author of numerous scholarly publications, he has developed methodological frameworks for analyzing urban spatial structure, examined the social and environmental consequences of automobile-oriented metropolitan development, and investigated the differential impacts of information and communication technologies (ICT) on various population groups. A primary focus of his current research is on the opportunities and challenges created by mobile ICT-enabled new mobility services. Exploring the paths toward more efficient, equitable, and environmentally responsible urban transportation, he is working with colleagues and graduate students to conduct innovative research on travel behavior and its connections with shared mobility services, built environments, and transportation demand management policies.
Professor Shen’s scholarly work has gained wide recognitions, which include a Horwood Critique Prize given by the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), an Emerging Scholar Paper Award in spatial analysis and modeling specialty given by the Association of American Geographers (AAG), a Chester Rapkin Award given by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), and a Best Paper Award by the World Society for Transportation and Land Use Research (WSTLUR). A highly active member of the academic community, he has served on the editorial boards of seven academic journals, including the Journal of the American Planning Association (since 2000; Associate Editor since 2020) and the Journal of Planning Education and Research (since 2006).
Professor Shen was educated in China (Zhejiang University) and Canada (University of British Columbia) before coming to the United States. He started his academic career at MIT as an assistant professor in 1993 and was promoted to associate professor in 1999. That was followed by his tenured faculty appointment in 2000 at the University of Maryland, College Park where he also served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. He joined the University of Washington as Professor and Department Chair in 2009. In addition, he has served as a visiting professor at several leading universities in China. In 2005, he was appointed by the President of Nanjing University as the first holder of Siyuan Chair Professorship, an endowed visiting position. In 2009, he was appointed as a visiting Tongji Chair Professor at Tongji University. In 2014, he was appointed by the President of Southwest Jiaotong University as the Oversea Dean of the School of Architecture and Design, a visiting advisory position. He was a primary founder and former Chairman of the International Association for China Planning (IACP).
Purcell’s work explores the possibility and potential of democracy. He is interested in how democracy can be an idea that inspires resistance to neoliberalism and austerity, but, more than that, he is interested in how it can help us flee those forms of life, how we can use it to create different forms, new ways of being together, other communities in which people make decisions for themselves, collectively. In short, he is searching for ways to think democracy radically. In that project, he spends a lot of time with and draw lots of ideas from the work of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Marx, Bakunin, Nietzsche, Deleuze & Guattari, Hardt & Negri, Lefebvre, Castoriadis, Ranciere, Virno, and Laclau & Mouffe. He also dabbles in some Arendt, Agamben, Abensour, Badiou, Nancy, Rosanvallon, Clastres, Foucault, and Debord. His plan is to engage more closely in the near future with Butler, Bifo, and (maybe) Dewey. (Then he’ll retire.)
He is particularly interested in democracy as it exists in cities. He wants to know more about how urban inhabitants are creating new forms of urban life, forms of life in which they manage the production of urban space themselves, without the State and without capitalist corporations. In this context, he works particularly closely with Henri Lefebvre, and especially with his ideas of urban society, autogestion, and the right to the city.
Chalana engages urban planning through the lenses of urban design, historic preservation, urban & planning history and equity & social justice. He has degrees in Architecture (B’Arch –Mangalore University; M’Arch from the School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi), Landscape Architecture (M’Larch from Penn State) and Urban Planning (Ph.D. from University of Colorado). Besides his appointment in Urban Design & Planning at UW, he is adjunct in the Departments of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and a member of the South Asia Program in the Jackson School of International Studies (JSIS). Before teaching at UW, he taught as a graduate student/ lecturer in the University of Colorado and Pennsylvania State University. He has worked in India with the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and Housing and Urban Development Corporation of India (HUDCO). Additionally, he consults on international projects mostly around historic preservation. He is one of the two founding directors of the Center for Preservation and Adaptive Reuse (CPAR), which strives to connect academia to practice of historic preservation. He is also affiliated with both the Graduate Certificates in Urban Design and Historic Preservation and both the PhD programs in our College; PhD in the Built Environment; and the Interdisciplinary PhD in Urban Planning.
He has offered a variety of courses ranging from study abroad; lectures; seminars and studios. He teaches graduate seminars in American Urban History and Introduction to Historic Preservation. Additionally, he teaches Urban Form and Communication and Analysis in the MUP core curriculum; and the Race and Social Justice Seminar. His studios have typically been on urban design and historic preservation topics engaging sites in the Pacific Northwest. For his study abroad classes, he has brought students for a quarter long programs to Chandigarh, India (co-led with Prakash) and month long exploration seminars to the Kumaon region in the upper Himalayas to study topics of urban design, planning and preservation. He has also co-taught study abroad classes in China and Japan along with his colleagues Dan Abramson and Bob Freitag on topics of hazard mitigation and cultural resilience, among others. He has been twice honored with the CBE’s Lionel Pries Distinguished Professor Award.
He is interested in topics of diversity and social justice in the context of historic preservation and urban planning. He engages these topics in his teaching and through my service. As a member of the Historic Preservation Advisory Committee (HPAC) of the 4Culture, Cultural Services Agency for King County, he mentors the diversity intern who works on uncovering systemic biases in the listing of historic sites in King County to the exclusion of under-represented minority communities. He has served on the UW Diversity Council’s Campus Climate Committee, which encouraged him to start the UDP department’s Diversity Committee (with Branden Born) that has worked for the last 10 years toward creating a welcoming environment for the underrepresented minority students in the College of Built Environments. Additionally, he has volunteered to serve on a committee of the National Council of Preservation Educators (NCPE) to understand the diversity of students enrolled in preservation programs in the country to better understand the accessibility and openness of the programs to underrepresented minority students.
He publishes on topics of urban design, planning history and preservation in a variety of journal including Future Anterior, Journal of Architectural Education, Journal of American Planning Association, Journal of Planning History and Planning Perspectives. He has co-edited a book on the topic of urbanism in Asia (along with Jeff Hou) – Messy Urbansim: understanding the “other” cities of Asia. He recently completed working on another edited volume (along with Ashima Krishna) on the status of preservation practice in India.