Urbanisation across sub-Saharan Africa is transforming the spatial structure of secondary towns, often generating uneven and fragmented growth. A key manifestation of this process is intra-urban dualism, where well-planned, affluent neighbourhoods coexist with densely populated, poorly regulated settlements. This spatial divide undermines orderly growth, deepens inequality, and places pressure on urban infrastructure. In Kenya, intra-urban dualism is increasingly evident, yet limited research has explored how it influences land-use transformation and sustainable development. Addressing this research gap is essential to understand how spatial inequalities shape urban growth trajectories and to guide equitable planning interventions. This study examines intra-urban dualism and land-use transformation in Kisii town, western Kenya, focusing on the contrasting neighbourhoods of Milimani (a low-density planned area) and Jogoo (a high-density unregulated settlement). Land-use and land-cover changes from 2005 to 2024 were analysed and projected to 2044, using ArcGIS Pro and QGIS. Building density, plot size compliance, and coverage ratios were quantified and validated through a one-sample t-test. Results show that Milimani has largely retained its planned form, whereas Jogoo has undergone rapid, unregulated densification driven by weak development control and fragmented land ownership. The study recommends data-driven, geospatially informed development control supported by adaptive zoning, participatory monitoring, blockchain-based permitting, and resilience audits to promote sustainable, inclusive, and transparent urban growth.
Cities. Urban geography, Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology
Nthiwa Alex Ngolanye, Kisovi Leornard, Kibutu Thomas
et al.
Abstract In modern times, cities around the world have grappled with the challenges of racial and ethnic segregation. In Nairobi city, with its diverse ethnic makeup, there is widening inequalities and emerging patterns of ethnic segregation, where the five main ethnic groups - Kamba, Luo, Kikuyu, Luhyia, and Kisii - experience varying levels of spatial concentration. This study analysed the spatial patterns of ethnic segregation in Nairobi, using geocoded questionnaire data from the 2019 Kenya population and housing census data. We used the Index of Dissimilarity in STATA software and Geo-segregation Analyzer and Anselin’s Local Moran I method in GIS to map ethnic segregation patterns. Our findings uncovered a striking socio-spatial divide based on ethnicity. Anselin Local Moran’s I indicators further pinpointed areas with the highest levels of segregation and spatial clustering of specific ethnic groups. These findings offer crucial insights for urban planners and policymakers. By pinpointing areas experiencing the most severe spatial segregation, our research could inform spatially targeted interventions and resource allocation. This could inform policies that foster inclusivity, reduce spatial inequalities, and build a more equitable and socially cohesive city.
Over the past two decades, e‑participation has become increasingly relevant as a result of digitization and the evolution of information and communication technologies. Yet the perspectives of providers and users with regard to the requirements on an e‑participation system are not sufficiently considered jointly. This paper investigates the requirements and challenges of users and providers. The study is based on a mixed methods approach with an online survey of those responsible for e‑participation processes in various administrative and planning areas as well as semi-structured expert interviews. In addition, we conducted proband tests to investigate the usability of digital citizen participation tools. The results show that accessibility, retrievability, effectiveness, interaction in the digital arena, security, technical specifications, resources, media literacy and the use of participation as a basis for profound decision-making are key requirements for e‑participation systems. These demands requirements are interrelated and influence the quality and effectiveness of participation processes. To meet these requirements, we propose an e‑participation ecosystem that integrates the different dimensions of digital participation and takes into account the interaction between actors, demands and contextual conditions.
Cities. Urban geography, Urbanization. City and country
The area of ??Sidoarjo Regency consists of 18 districts with a land area of ??around 714,245 km2 and a coastal area of ??around 201,687 km2. The topographical conditions in the Sidoarjo Regency are lowlands with altitudes ranging from 0 to +25 m above sea level, so that certain areas in Sidoarjo Regency show a condition that has the potential to experience flooding problems. Making infiltration wells is one of the most efficient solutions. Infiltration wells are wells or holes on the ground surface that are made to collect rainwater so that it can seep into the ground either through the roofs of buildings, roads and yards. There are 20 points spread across 9 sub-districts in Sidoarjo Regency which, based on field survey reviews, have the potential to experience flooding problems. In this area, infiltration wells will be built. Direct observation in the field is carried out to determine the condition of the area under review and to plan the design and recommendation points to be carried out. In addition to this, soil permeability conditions also need to be analyzed so that the coefficient is known. Primary data collection related to soil type classification was obtained from literacy data and soil type maps in Sidoarjo Regency. Based on direct observation and soil type literacy data, it is recommended that infiltration wells with a depth of 2 meter and a diameter of 1.1 meter be used are buis concrete and a filter system using palm fiber as a filter for sediment and waste so as not to interfere with the infiltration process in the infiltration well. 1 infiltration well can accommodate and absorb ± 1900 liters of water which can reduce flood discharge within 46 to 61 hours depending on the type of soil under review.
Social sciences (General), Cities. Urban geography
Cities have always been hubs for celebration and festivity, bringing people together to escape temporarily from the mundane nature of everyday routines. Festivals have often been bridges between people and places, linking personal geography with collective experiences and therefore increasingly of interest to cultural geographers. However, festivals also have social, economic, and political aspects that are constructed by societal influences of the time and place. This paper presents some of the key debates ongoing in academic literature across disciplines to demonstrate the contested role that cultural festivals play in urban settings and suggests that urban geography is critical to developing these debates. It is simply no longer possible to say that festivity is a simple rupture in the mundanity of everyday life of urban citizens; rather, contemporary cultural festivals now often exhibit complex and uneasy tensions between the socio-economic strategies of commercialized neoliberal cities and the cultural needs of diverse communities to gather and celebrate. By reviewing the development of festivals as part of the urban cultural economy utilising a geographic lens, this paper sets out how cultural festivals are now more often employed by cities for marketing, tourism, and other socio-economic benefits. We demonstrate that cultural festivals and cities have an ongoing relationship, which is now mainly commercialized and politicized, and this has diverse impacts on communities, urban spaces, and cultural identities.
Abstract The smart city imaginary has become a recurring theme within critical urban geography and entails a distinct set of rationalities. Here, we are interested in grappling with the current ‘place’ of smart cities in the context of what seems to be an emerging platform urbanism, thereby highlighting a complex platform-based ecosystem encompassing private and public organisations and citizens. Our point of departure is the operationalization of three intertwined trends associated with the conceptualizations of participation, mediatisation and (multi-sided) platformisation. Through the examination of (social) traffic and navigation application, Waze, we explore manifestations of (contested) dynamics in mobility practices occurring between commerce and community in the public space of the city. The preliminary findings point to the emergence of new socio-spatial constructs which afford a better frame of ‘what is going on’, challenging the smart city framework as a planning and development paradigm. In putting forward the notion of public value and ownership, it is our aim to prompt a critical debate about platform urbanism made explicit by a driving politics that offers a window to a future driving world, urging cities and governments to anticipate and mitigate (un)intended consequences.
Henrietta Palmer, Merritt Polk, David Simon
et al.
Abstract As widely attested in the literature, the evaluation of co-production is complex and unsuited to the use of conventional quality, monitoring and evaluation indicators. This reflects the uncertainties, co-contributory factors and time lags involved, particularly when seeking to assess institutional and wider societal effects of multi-stakeholder participatory processes and deliberative fora. The most widely assessed effects include the immediate outputs and outcomes of a project or activity (so-called first order effects) while wider societal or third order effects continue to be the most difficult to capture and, consequently, are the least well studied. Because of this difficulty, the intermediate, second order effects of organisational transformation and policy implementation constitute a growing challenge for evaluation. This is our focus here. After 10 years of transdisciplinary co-productive research practice, Mistra Urban Futures, as an interstitial research space bridging academia and practice working through city-based institutional partnerships called platforms, has reached a phase where some of these effects are becoming distinguishable. Accordingly, we discuss the prerequisites for co-production practitioners, including policy makers, to engage their respective organisations in transitional and incremental experimentation in order to achieve relevant institutional changes. This requires enabling infrastructures that support training, facilitation and the creation of ‘safe’ spaces to promote trust and legitimacy. These are needed to underpin the long-lasting personal and organisational commitments which are crucial to achieve transformative organisational effects.
Aesthetics of cities. City planning and beautifying, Cities. Urban geography
Krzysztofik Robert, Dymitrow Mirek, Grzelak-Kostulska Elżbieta
et al.
Poverty and social exclusion remain some of the biggest concerns in the face of obtaining social sustainability. In this respect, the continuing immense spatial differences between individual localities of seemingly similar characteristics have puzzled social scientists for decades. In quest for a better understanding, this article highlights the role of spatial heterogeneity as a factor conducive to the formation of functionally derelict areas, which in turn play a crucial role in the formation of spatial mismatch. Using two case studies from Poland, one from a big city and one from a small village, we explore the relationality between the phenomena of spatial heterogeneity, functional dereliction and spatial mismatch, whose mutual reinforcement seems to lead to a specific kind of deprivation in terms of scale and intensity. Special attention is paid to the role of spatial heterogeneity, which under certain conditions is capable of changing from being a developmental stimulant to becoming a destimulant. We argue that taking greater account of the intricate historical contexts responsible for the resistance of some pressing socio-economic problems is key to breaking the deadlock in the implementation of ineffective sustainability policies.
Der Beitrag führt in den Themenschwerpunkt „Stadt der Reproduktion“ ein und skizziert die bisherigen Forschungen und Leerstellen zu Fragen der spezifischen räumlichen Organisationsformen von Reproduktion und Sorgearbeit. Daran anschließend stellen wir die Beiträge des Themenschwerpunkts kurz vor und fordern dazu auf, neue Perspektiven sowie empirische und theoretische Zugänge zu entwickeln, um diese zentrale Dimension urbaner Wirklichkeit stärker in den Blick der kritischen Stadtforschung zu nehmen.
Cities. Urban geography, Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology
After the fire of the emblematic Diego Portales building in March 2006, located in the downtown Santiago de Chile, an intense debate began between those who wanted to leave the land for real estate investment, and who, on the contrary, appealed to the spirit original of the work as the center of the Third United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD III), and the Gabriela Mistral Metropolitan Cultural Center until September 1973. When the second position was won, an international tender awarded to Lateral Arquitectos was proclaimed. which considered a specialized library. Then, following the spirit of the original work, a public contest was held for integrated works of art, among which was selected a visualization of the genealogical trajectories of the building that would allow a prospective reflection. This article synthesizes this methodological proposal in a theoretical and practical way.
Welche Bedeutung hat eine zunehmend digitale Vernetzung für (europäische) Städte und ihre Bewohner_innen? Die aktuelle kritische „Smart City“-Forschung versucht diese Frage für unterschiedliche Aspekte der Stadtpolitik zu beantworten. Sie betrachtet Smart City als Marketingetikett wettbewerbsorientierter Stadtregierungen, als Dienstleistungsprodukt von IT-Konzernen und als Eingangstor zur deregulierten Vernetzung digitaler Daten. Dieser Beitrag setzt sich systematisch mit der Verwobenheit dieser Aspekte auseinander, mit einem Fokus auf erstens digital vernetzte Infrastrukturen kommunaler Daseinsvorsorge und zweitens auf vernetzte Interaktions- und Kommunikationstechnologien in der Alltagspraxis. Dabei wird die diskursive, die strukturelle und die subjektive Ebene von Optimierungsversprechen, Selbststeuerung und Ermächtigung diskutiert. Diese Betrachtung zeigt Städte als Orte spontaner, ungeplanter und widerständiger Interaktionen, die gleichzeitig an Effizienz-, Kontroll-, Optimierungs- und Wettbewerbsidealen ausgerichtet sind.
Cities. Urban geography, Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology
Recent debates have highlighted trends towards the privatisation of public space and the incorporation of increased security measures to safeguard users. Literature has also emphasised the move away from the traditional high street to suburban shopping malls as part of an increased focus on the development of protected consumption space. As public space continuously evolves, it is interesting to find the emergence of a new type of controlled outdoor space that seems to reflect characteristics of older traditional public spaces acting as a local gathering space in suburbia, yet being very controlled within the boundaries of shopping malls and reflecting strong patterns of consumption. The article investigates this trend within the capital city of South Africa, Pretoria, focusing on three quasi-public spaces. The findings indicate that urban design continues to play a critical role in the incorporation of characteristics that are traditionally associated with successful public spaces, but with a strong emphasis on consumption in a controlled and secure environment. At the same time, however, these spaces have also become a new type of village commons in an increasingly polarised society and, hence, cannot simply be negated as purely exclusive spaces.
Cities. Urban geography, Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology
Egbinola Christiana Ndidi, Amanambu Amobichukwu Chukwudi
Access to potable water supply, sanitation and hygiene education remains relatively low both in the urban and rural areas in developing countries. The main aim of the study was to get an overview of the condition of the water and sanitary facilities in schools and of hygiene education. The method of investigation involved systematic random sampling with the use of questionnaires and interviews with the students and teachers and onsite inspection of the sanitation facilities available within the schools. The results revealed that 24% of schools used W/C while 76% of schools used pit toilets, of which 88% were ordinary pit toilets and 12% VIP. The number of toilets within the schools ranged between 0 and 14 revealing a 185:1 student to toilet ratio within the study area, but ranged widely from 83:1 to 510:1 between schools. The study, however, revealed the absence of wash hand basins in 77% of the schools and no soap in 88% of the schools with wash hand basins. Investing in clean water, sanitation and hygiene education in these public schools should become a priority for governments in developing countries and School Sanitation and Hygiene Education program (SSHE) should be adopted and implemented across schools in Nigeria.
The article focuses on the sense of security as a very important element affecting the quality of life and its improvement. Attention was drawn to crime and security in public space, which, is used by old people. The aim of the study is to use the CPTED methodology – Dutch solutions in the field of crime prevention such as architectural, urban and green design. The main criteria used in the method is visibility, accessibility, attractiveness and territoriality. Observations and analysis on the use of this method were conducted by the author on the high-rise (real estate) in Łódź-Widzew.
Urban environmental stewardship activities are on the rise in cities throughout the Northeast. Groups participating in stewardship activities range in age, size, and geography and represent an increasingly complex and dynamic arrangement of civil society, government and business sectors. To better understand the structure, function and network of these community-based urban land managers, an assessment was conducted in 2004 by the research subcommittee of the Urban Ecology Collaborative. The goal of the assessment was to better understand the role of stewardship organizations engaged in urban ecology initiatives in selected major cities in the Northeastern U.S.: Boston, New Haven, New York City, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. A total of 135 active organizations participated in this assessment. Findings include the discovery of a dynamic social network operating within cities, and a reserve of social capital and expertise that could be better utilized.