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Research Theme: Global Built Environment

Includes international scholarship as well as scholarship that has international implications

Evaluation Strategies on the Thermal Environmental Effectiveness of Street Canyon Clusters: A Case Study of Harbin, China

Li, Guanghao; Cheng, Qingqing; Zhan, Changhong; Yocom, Ken P. (2022). Evaluation Strategies on the Thermal Environmental Effectiveness of Street Canyon Clusters: A Case Study of Harbin, China. Sustainability, 14(20).

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Abstract

Urban overheating significantly affects people's physical and mental health. The addition of street trees is an essential, economical, and effective means by which to mitigate urban heat and optimize the overall thermal environment. Focusing on typical street canyon clusters in Harbin, China, landscape morphology was quantified by streetscape interface measurements (sky view factor, tree view factor, and building view factor). Through ENVI-met simulations, the correlation mechanism between streetscape interface measurements and thermal environment was evaluated, and optimization methods for assessing the thermal environment of urban streets were proposed. The results revealed: (1) The thermal environment optimization efficiency of general street canyon types was greatest when street tree spacing was 12 m. At present, the smaller spacing has not been simulated and may yield better thermal environment results. The average decrease in temperature (Ta), relative humidity (RH) and mean radiant temperature (MRT) was 0.78%, 2.23%, and 30.20%, respectively. (2) Specific street canyon types should adopt precise control strategies of streetscape interface according to their types to achieve the optimal balance between thermal environment optimization and cost. (3) Streetscape interface measurements and thermal environment indexes show quadratic correlation characteristics, and are critical points for further investigation. The conclusions are more specific than previous research findings, which are of great significance for decreasing the urban heat island effect at the block scale, improving residents' physical and mental health, and improving the urban environment quality.

Keywords

Heat Mitigation Strategies; Urban Green Areas; Sky View Factor; Cold Region; Comfort; Tree; Landscape; Park; Simulation; Density; Street Canyon Clusters; Streetscape Interface Measurement; Envi-met Simulation; Thermal Optimization

Measuring the Housing Sector’s Contribution to GDP in Emerging Market Countries

Acolin, Arthur;hoek-smit, Marja;green, Richard K. (2022). Measuring the Housing Sector’s Contribution to GDP in Emerging Market Countries. International Journal Of Housing Markets And Analysis, 15(5), 977-994.

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Abstract

Purpose > This paper aims to document the economic importance of the housing sector, as measured by its contribution to gross domestic product (GDP), which is not fully recognized. In response to the joint economic and health crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an opportunity for emerging market countries to develop and implement inclusive housing strategies that stimulate the economy and improve community health outcomes. However, so far housing does not feature prominently in the recovery plans of many emerging market countries. Design/methodology/approach > This paper uses national account data and informal housing estimates for 11 emerging market economies to estimate the contribution of housing investments and housing services to the GDP of these countries. Findings > This paper finds that the combined contribution of housing investments and housing services represents between 6.9% and 18.5% of GDP, averaging 13.1% in the countries with information about both. This puts the housing sector roughly on par with other key sectors such as manufacturing. In addition, if the informal housing sector is undercounted in the official national account figures used in this analysis by 50% or 100%, for example, then the true averages of housing investments and housing services’ contribution to GDP would increase to 14.3% or 16.1% of GDP, respectively. Research limitations/implications > Further efforts to improve data collection about housing investments and consumption, particularly imputed rent for owner occupiers and informal activity require national government to conduct regular household and housing surveys. Researcher can help make these surveys more robust and leverage new data sources such as scraped housing price and rent data to complement traditional surveys. Better data are needed in order to capture housing contribution to the economy. Practical implications > The size of the housing sector and its impact in terms of employment and community resilience indicate the potential of inclusive housing investments to both serve short-term economic stimulus and increase long-term community resilience. Originality/value > The role of housing in the economy is often limited to housing investment, despite the importance of housing services and well-documented methodologies to include them. This analysis highlights the importance of housing to the economy of emerging market countries (in addition to all the non-GDP related impact of housing on welfare) and indicate data limitation that need to be addressed to further strengthen the case for focusing on housing as part of economic recovery plans.

Keywords

Pandemics; Economic Importance; Investments; Housing; Sanitation; Recovery; International Organizations; Covid-19; Economic Growth; Data Collection; Economic Indicators; Economics; Housing Conditions; Economic Policy; Economic Conditions; Market Economies; Resilience; Low Income Groups; Economic Activity; Consumption; Emerging Markets; Earthquakes; Surveys; Gross Domestic Product--gdp; Coronaviruses; Affordable Housing; Economic Development; Informal Economy; Households; Recovery Plans; Disease Transmission; Africa; South Africa; India

What Next? Expanding Our View of City Planning and Global Health, and Implementing and Monitoring Evidence-informed Policy

Giles-corti, Billie; Moudon, Anne Vernez; Lowe, Melanie; Cerin, Ester; Boeing, Geoff; Frumkin, Howard; Salvo, Deborah; Foster, Sarah; Kleeman, Alexandra; Bekessy, Sarah; De Sa, Thiago Herick; Nieuwenhuijsen, Mark; Higgs, Carl; Hinckson, Erica; Adlakha, Deepti; Arundel, Jonathan; Liu, Shiqin; Oyeyemi, Adewale L.; Nitvimol, Kornsupha; Sallis, James F. (2022). What Next? Expanding Our View of City Planning and Global Health, and Implementing and Monitoring Evidence-informed Policy. Lancet Global Health, 10(6), E919-E926.

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Abstract

This Series on urban design, transport, and health aimed to facilitate development of a global system of health-related policy and spatial indicators to assess achievements and deficiencies in urban and transport policies and features. This final paper in the Series summarises key findings, considers what to do next, and outlines urgent key actions. Our study of 25 cities in 19 countries found that, despite many well intentioned policies, few cities had measurable standards and policy targets to achieve healthy and sustainable cities. Available standards and targets were often insufficient to promote health and wellbeing, and health-supportive urban design and transport features were often inadequate or inequitably distributed. City planning decisions affect human and planetary health and amplify city vulnerabilities, as the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted. Hence, we offer an expanded framework of pathways through which city planning affects health, incorporating 11 integrated urban system policies and 11 integrated urban and transport interventions addressing current and emerging issues. Our call to action recommends widespread uptake and further development of our methods and open-source tools to create upstream policy and spatial indicators to benchmark and track progress; unmask spatial inequities; inform interventions and investments; and accelerate transitions to net zero, healthy, and sustainable cities.

Transport Impacts of Clustered Development in Beijing: Compact Development Versus Overconcentration

Yang, Jiawen; Shen, Qing; Shen, Jinzhen; He, Canfei. (2012). Transport Impacts of Clustered Development in Beijing: Compact Development Versus Overconcentration. Urban Studies, 49(6), 1315 – 1331.

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Abstract

This research aims to inform the compact city discussion with a case study of Beijing, where urban planning has emphasised clustered suburban development in the past half-century. It uses three decades of census data to describe Beijing's spatial development trajectory and a household survey to assess its transport impacts. The research reveals an overconcentration of urban activities as a result of the featureless expansion of the central built-up area and the absorption of the suburban clusters; and, a lengthened commuting time stemming from the observed spatial development pattern. Beijing's experience adds to the existing literature by informing the search for good city forms in urban areas of high density. It is essential to differentiate compact development from overconcentration when combating sprawling development. Developing and maintaining suburban nodal characteristics around public transit can reduce travel in high-density urban areas.

Keywords

Jobs-housing Balance; Commuting Patterns; Urban; Growth; City; Towns

Physical Activity and the Built Environment in Residential Neighborhoods of Seoul and Seattle: An Empirical Study Based on Housewives’ GPS Walking Data and Travel Diaries

Park, Sohyun; Choi, Yeemyung; Seo, Hanlim; Moudon, Anne Vernez; Bae, C. -h. Christine; Baek, So-ra. (2016). Physical Activity and the Built Environment in Residential Neighborhoods of Seoul and Seattle: An Empirical Study Based on Housewives’ GPS Walking Data and Travel Diaries. Journal Of Asian Architecture And Building Engineering, 15(3), 471 – 478.

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Abstract

This paper is based on a collaborative pilot-study to ascertain the characteristic walking patterns and neighborhood features in residential areas of Seoul, Korea and Seattle, USA. As for sample sites, four case neighborhoods were selected: two from Seoul and two from in and outside of the Seattle-Shoreline areas. As for participants, thirty Korean housewives in Seoul and thirty Korean-American housewives in the Seattle area were selected respectively, and their socio-demographic characteristics, GPS records, and travel diary data for seven days were collected and analyzed. Considering the typical rainy seasons in the two cities, data collections, including the physical activity assessment by GPS devices, were carried out from May to June and from September to October in Seoul, and from July to October in Seattle during the year 2010. Noteworthy research findings include the following: Korean participants in Seoul walk about 2.6 km on average per day, while Korean-American participants in Seattle walk about 400m on average per day. In the case sites of Seoul, 75% of grocery shopping activities happen within the neighborhood by walking, while only 17% of those activities on foot happen in the case sites of Seattle. As for the most walking activity, about 70% of total walking amounts are related to utilitarian walking in Seoul sites, while 50% of total walking are related to recreational walking in Seattle sites. Recreational walking and utilitarian walking occur separately in Seattle sites, while the two walking types are often combined in Seoul sites, which also contribute to more walking amounts and farther walking distances in Seoul sites. This paper empirically confirms the widely held assumptions in part that residents in Seoul, a relatively high-density and high mixed-use city, walk more than those in Seattle, a relatively low-density and low mixed-use city. This paper also recognizes that in the case of both cities, more walking activities occur in the neighborhood built environment, where finely-grained street networks, small lots and blocks, various pedestrian destinations, public transit access, etc are provided in close connection. The amount and frequency of walking activities, as well as the fineness of neighborhood features, however, are remarkably different in the two cities, whose implications deserve in-depth exploration in further studies.

Keywords

Urban Design; Physical Activity; Neighborhood Environment; Objective Measures; Gps Walking Data; International Comparative Study

Spatial Relationships between Urban Structures and Air Pollution in Korea

Jung, Meen Chel; Park, Jaewoo; Kim, Sunghwan. (2019). Spatial Relationships between Urban Structures and Air Pollution in Korea. Sustainability, 11(2).

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Abstract

Urban structures facilitate human activities and interactions but are also a main source of air pollutants; hence, investigating the relationship between urban structures and air pollution is crucial. The lack of an acceptable general model poses significant challenges to investigations on the underlying mechanisms, and this gap fuels our motivation to analyze the relationships between urban structures and the emissions of four air pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and two types of particulate matter, in Korea. We first conduct exploratory data analysis to detect the global and local spatial dependencies of air pollutants and apply Bayesian spatial regression models to examine the spatial relationship between each air pollutant and urban structure covariates. In particular, we use population, commercial area, industrial area, park area, road length, total land surface, and gross regional domestic product per person as spatial covariates of interest. Except for park area and road length, most covariates have significant positive relationships with air pollutants ranging from 0 to 1, which indicates that urbanization does not result in a one-to-one negative influence on air pollution. Findings suggest that the government should consider the degree of urban structures and air pollutants by region to achieve sustainable development.

Keywords

Land-use Regression; Particulate Matter Concentrations; Nitrogen-dioxide; Temporal Variations; Smart City; Quality; Health; Pm10; Fine; Pollutants; Urban Structure; Air Pollution; Moran's I; Bayesian Spatial Model; Motivation; Population; Urbanization; Nitrogen Oxides; Urban Structures; Emissions; Regression Analysis; Regression Models; Sulfur; Spatial Dependencies; Environmental Impact; Outdoor Air Quality; Metropolitan Areas; Economic Growth; Photochemicals; Industrial Areas; Urban Areas; Industrial Plant Emissions; Particulate Emissions; Particulate Matter; Data Analysis; Bayesian Analysis; Sustainable Development; Sulfur Oxides; Regions; Mathematical Models; Cities; China

Beyond Le Corbusier and the Modernist City: Reframing Chandigarh’s ‘World Heritage’ Legacy

Chalana, Manish; Sprague, Tyler S. (2013). Beyond Le Corbusier and the Modernist City: Reframing Chandigarh’s ‘World Heritage’ Legacy. Planning Perspectives, 28(2), 199 – 222.

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Abstract

The heritage of Chandigarh, India is a complex subject. While widely acknowledged by academic and professional communities worldwide as a significant work of modernist architecture and urban design, Chandigarh's specific temporal, geographical and cultural contexts complicate efforts to get the city inscribed on United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's World Heritage List. This article outlines the persistent attempts by both local and international organizations to achieve this inscription, efforts that have not yet been successful. Relying on historical scholarship and fieldwork, the authors reassess the value of Chandigarh's heritage both in terms of historical significance and contemporary planning. By addressing the complexity and scope of the design and planning process, embracing the inhabitation and appropriation of the city, and fostering an appreciation of modern architecture, Chandigarh can develop a more localized understanding of heritage yet one that can be appreciated worldwide.

Keywords

World Heritage Sites; Historic Sites; Modern Architecture; Urban Planning; Architecture; Modern Movement (architecture); Preservation Of Historic Sites; Twentieth Century; Chandigarh (india); India; Chandigarh; Le Corbusier; Modern Heritage; Preservation Planning; Unesco; World Heritage List; Le Corbusier, 1887-1965

Visitor Center Design Research Based on Resilience Theory

Ren Hong; Wang Peng; Cai Weiguang; Li Dandan; Du Yongjie; Sun Junqiao; Abramson, Daniel. (2016). Visitor Center Design Research Based on Resilience Theory. Open House International, 41(3), 5 – 11.

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Abstract

Visitor center plays an important role in the normal operation and sustainable development of scenic spots, especially as a portal image of its management. This paper presents resilience theory for visitor centers to identify some common issues in designing visitor centers in China scenic spots, including the lack of function, loss of architectural characteristics, and difficultly in adapting to changes in the number of visitors with periodic variations. The framework of resilience theory was set from four dimensions, namely, resilience and match in the composition of ontology function, the extended function, integration of buildings into the surrounding environment, and alternative construction technologies and materials. This theory was explained and analyzed with the application of the theory in practice in combination with the design of Mount Hua visitor center. Results showed that resilience theory yields good application effect.

Keywords

Resilience Theory; Visitor Center; Design Research; Function Space

Quantifying Economic Effects of Transportation Investment Considering Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity in China: A Spatial Panel Data Model Perspective

Lin, Xiongbin; Maclachlan, Ian; Ren, Ting; Sun, Feiyang. (2019). Quantifying Economic Effects of Transportation Investment Considering Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity in China: A Spatial Panel Data Model Perspective. The Annals Of Regional Science, 63(3), 437 – 459.

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Abstract

Transportation investment plays a significant role in promoting economic development. However, in what scenario and to what extent transportation investment can stimulate economic growth still remains debatable. For developing countries undergoing rapid urbanization, answering these questions is necessary for evaluating proposals and determining investment plans, especially considering the heterogeneity of spatiotemporal conditions. Current literature lacks systematical research to consider the impacts of panel data and spatial correlation issue in examining the economic effects of transportation investment. To fill this gap, this study collects provincial panel data in China from 1997 to 2015 to evaluate multi-level temporal and spatial effects of transportation investment on economic growth by using spatial panel data analysis. Results show that transportation investment leads to significant and positive effects on growth and spatial concentration of economic activities, but these results vary significantly depending on the temporal and spatial characteristics of each province. The economic impacts of transportation investment are quite positive even considering the time lag effects. This study suggests that both central and local governments should carefully evaluate the multifaceted economic effects of transportation investment, such as a balanced transportation investment and economic development between growing and lagging regions, and considering the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of the economic environment.

Keywords

High-speed Rail; Infrastructure Investment; Causal Relationship; Empirical-analysis; Growth; Impact; Productivity; Efficiency; Spillover; Agglomeration; C33; R40; R58; Spatial Analysis; Time Lag; Urbanization; Transportation; Heterogeneity; Economic Growth; Economic Models; Economic Impact; Data Analysis; Spatial Data; Panel Data; Economic Development; Developing Countries--ldcs; Investments; Economic Analysis; Investment; Local Government; China