Hasil untuk "Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology"

Lubin Bai, Sheng Xiao, Ziyu Yin et al.

Urban Villages (UVs) represent a distinctive form of high-density informal settlement embedded within China's rapidly urbanizing cities. Accurate identification of UVs is critical for urban governance, renewal, and sustainable development. But due to the pronounced heterogeneity and diversity of UVs across China's vast territory, a consistent and reliable nationwide dataset has been lacking. In this work, we present GeoLink-UV, a high-resolution nationwide UV mapping product that clearly delineates the locations and boundaries of UVs in 342 Chinese cities. The dataset is derived from multisource geospatial data, including optical remote sensing images and geo-vector data, and is generated through a foundation model-driven mapping framework designed to address the generalization issues and improve the product quality. A geographically stratified accuracy assessment based on independent samples from 28 cities confirms the reliability and scientific credibility of the nationwide dataset across heterogeneous urban contexts. Based on this nationwide product, we reveal substantial interregional disparities in UV prevalence and spatial configuration. On average, UV areas account for 8 % of built-up land, with marked clustering in central and south China. Building-level analysis further confirms a consistent low-rise, high-density development pattern of UVs nationwide, while highlighting regionally differentiated morphological characteristics. The GeoLink-UV dataset provides an open and systematically validated geospatial foundation for urban studies, informal settlement monitoring, and evidence-based urban renewal planning, and contributes directly to large-scale assessments aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 11. The GeoLink-UV dataset introduced in this article is freely available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18688062.

Arjun Ramani, Joel Alecdo, Nicholas Bloom

Significance The future of cities is a topic of broad interest to businesspeople making decisions around office space, policymakers planning zoning codes and public transportation networks, and academics interested in questions of spatial organization across a wide range of fields including economics, urban planning, environmental studies, and sociology. Our data provide evidence as to how a huge structural shift to work—remote working—may have permanently changed the shape of many major global cities and is therefore of value to these groups.

Oswaldo Patricio Prieto Jiménez

Esta investigación analiza la primera obra de arquitectura religiosa moderna en Loja, Ecuador: la Capilla de la Medalla Milagrosa de Marcelo Rodríguez Palacios de 1962. El estudio comienza con una revisión de los atributos de la arquitectura moderna y su evolución en Ecuador, enfocándose en su manifestación en la ciudad de Loja. Se examinan aspectos clave de la obra, tales como su relación con el entorno urbano, los componentes fundamentales y su composición formal. Finalmente, se analiza la aplicación de los principios de la modernidad y su vínculo con el entorno cultural, destacando su relevancia en la evolución de la arquitectura religiosa en Ecuador.

Qiongyan Wang, Xingchen Zou, Yutian Jiang et al.

Rapid urbanization intensifies the demand for Urban General Intelligence (UGI), referring to AI systems that can understand and reason about complex urban environments. Recent studies have built urban foundation models using supervised fine-tuning (SFT) of LLMs and MLLMs, yet these models exhibit persistent geospatial bias, producing regionally skewed predictions and limited generalization. To this end, we propose Urban-R1, a reinforcement learning-based post-training framework that aligns MLLMs with the objectives of UGI. Urban-R1 adopts Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) to optimize reasoning across geographic groups and employs urban region profiling as a proxy task to provide measurable rewards from multimodal urban data. Extensive experiments across diverse regions and tasks show that Urban-R1 effectively mitigates geo-bias and improves cross-region generalization, outperforming both SFT-trained and closed-source models. Our results highlight reinforcement learning alignment as a promising pathway toward equitable and trustworthy urban intelligence.

Mariana Brüning-González, José Ignacio Arroyo, Pablo A. Marquet et al.

Understanding the quantitative patterns behind scientific disciplines is fundamental for informed research policy. While many fields have been studied from this perspective, Urban Science (USc) and its subfields remain underexplored. As organisms, urban systems rely on materials and energy inputs and transformation (i.e. metabolism) to sustain essential dynamics. This concept has been adopted by various disciplines, including architecture and sociology, and by those focused on metabolic processes, such as ecology and industrial ecology. This study addresses the structure and evolution of Urban Metabolism (UM) and Sustainability research, analyzing articles by disciplines, study subjects (e.g., cities, regions), methodologies, and author diversity (nationality and gender). Our review suggests that UM is an emerging field that grew until 2019, primarily addressed by environmental science and ecology. Common methods include Ecological Network Analysis, and Life Cycle Assessment, and Material Flow Analysis, focusing flows over stocks, ecosystem dynamics and evolutionary perspectives of the urban system. Authors are predominantly from China and the USA, and there are less gender gaps compared to general science research. Our analysis identifies relevant challenges that have become evident in the statistical properties of this scientific field and which might be helpful for the design of improved research policies.

Gonzalo G. Peraza-Mues, Eugen Resendiz, Rodolfo Figueroa-Soriano et al.

Despite its pervasive implications, many cities worldwide continue to expand in a fragmented, horizontal manner. We analyse urban growth dynamics in 69 Mexican metropolitan areas from 1990 to 2020 using census data, developing a model of urban form change based on population size, density, and spatial configuration. We employ a radial probability density function and the urban expansion factor to create a framework for comparing urban expansion over time and across different regions. Over the past three decades, Mexico's urban population has nearly doubled. However, populations have shifted outward, resulting in a decline of 2.5 million residents in central areas. Our analysis shows that distances from the city centre have increased by 28% on average, driven by population losses in central zones combined with growth in peripheral regions.

Jing Li, Fangli Huang, Qiumei Pu

Based on the global influence of the dissemination of short videos on the Internet, this article starts from the hot topics related to domestic cities and deeply explores the communication characteristics of relevant short videos on overseas social media platforms and their impact on the construction of urban images. Combining theories from sociology, journalism and communication, computer science, etc., the study conducts an analysis from three levels: micro, meso, and macro. By mining and identifying the hot topics related to domestic cities in overseas short videos, it reveals the focal points of domestic cities in international public opinion. Based on these focal points, it analyzes the content of short videos on popular topics and the emotional attitudes of their audience groups to explore users’ emotional preferences for different hot topics. Furthermore, it delves into the relationship between the dissemination paths of short videos and the construction of urban images. Synthesizing the above three aspects, suggestions for optimizing the communication strategies of domestic urban images are proposed. The study finds that short videos on hot topics related to domestic cities play an important role in the international communication of urban images. They not only showcase the features and characteristics of domestic cities but also provide a new way for the international dissemination of Chinese culture.

A. Buijs, Rieke Hansen, Sander Van der Jagt et al.

Abstract Compact urban development, social demands and austerity measures are increasing pressures on urban greenspace. Meanwhile, active citizens, defined as voluntary individuals or groups who self-organize to contribute to urban green space development, provide ecological and social benefits to urban societies. This has inspired local governments to seek collaborations with non-state actors, including active citizens. However, the diverging aims, place-specific focus, and varying expertise of active citizenship may inhibit its contribution to ecological connectivity and upscaling beyond the local scale. In this paper, we investigate how “mosaic governance” has potential as a framework for understanding active citizenship, its potential for upscaling and its relationship to strategic UGI planning. Using the policy arrangements approach, we analyse the role of discourse, resources, actors and rules of the game in the upscaling of active citizenship. Based on eight empirical cases from seven European cities, we analyse the diversity of collaborations between local governments and active citizens in greenspace development. The cases show how active citizens can significantly contribute to UGI planning and implementation, for example by developing large parks with volunteers or designing a network of green corridors. The cases reveal multiple ways citizens and local governments benefit from collaborations, as well as different pathways for upscaling innovative discourses and practices from local communities to formal policy or to other cities. To enable upscaling, UGI planning needs to combine long-term, more formalized and higher-scale strategic approaches with more incremental approaches that correspond with localized, fragmented and informal efforts of local communities. While collaborations between municipalities and active citizenship is not without its difficulties, the examples of upscaling in our cases demonstrate the transformative power active citizens may have towards a more green, just and democratic city.

Eleonora Bahr Pessôa, Mariluci Neis Carelli, Dione da Rocha Bandeira

Resumo As diretrizes estabelecidas pelo Estatuto da Cidade determinam a garantia do direito a cidades sustentáveis, à gestão democrática e à inclusão da política patrimonial no planejamento e na gestão do desenvolvimento urbano. O objetivo deste trabalho é realizar uma pesquisa do estado da arte, em bancos de dados, sobre a produção acadêmica nacional relacionada à abordagem do patrimônio cultural entre 2011-2020, nos planos diretores municipais. Por meio da metodologia estado da arte foi possível concluir que há pouca produção acadêmica relacionando o plano diretor ao patrimônio cultural.

N. Garcia-Chan, L. J. Alvarez-Vazquez, A. Martinez et al.

In this paper we propose a novel traffic flow model based on understanding the city as a porous media, this is, streets and building-blocks characterizing the urban landscape are seen now as the fluid-phase and the solid-phase of a porous media, respectively. Moreover, based in the interchange of mass in the porous media models, we can model the interchange of cars between streets and off-street parking-spaces. Therefore, our model is not a standard conservation law, being formulated as the coupling of a non-stationary convection-diffusion-reaction PDE with a Darcy-Brinkman-Forchheimer PDE system. To solve this model, the classical Galerkin P1 finite element method combined with an explicit time marching scheme of strong stability-preserving type was enough to stabilize our numerical solutions. Numerical experiences on an urban-porous domain inspired by the city of Guadalajara (Mexico) allow us to simulate the influence of the porosity terms on the traffic speed, the traffic flow at rush-valley hours, and the streets congestions due to the lack of parking spaces.

Andy Jingqian Xue, Chenyu Huang, Bin Jiang

As urban critic Jane Jacobs conceived, a city is essentially the problem of organized complexity. What underlies the complexity refers to a structural factor, called living structure, which is defined as a mathematical structure composed of hierarchically organized substructures. Through these substructures, the complexity of cities, or equivalent to the livingness of urban space (L), can be measured by the multiplication the number of cities or substructures (S) and their scaling hierarchy (H), indicating that complexity is about both quantity of cities and how well the city is organized hierarchically. In other words, complexity emerges from a hierarchical structure where there are far more small cities or substructures than large ones across all scales, and cities are more or less similar within each individual hierarchical level. In this paper, we conduct comprehensive case studies to investigate urban complexity on a global scale using multisource geospatial data. We develop an efficient approach to recursively identifying all natural cities with their inner hotspots worldwide through connected component analysis. To characterize urban complexity, urban space is initially represented as a hierarchy of recursively defined natural cities, and all the cities are then represented as a network for measuring the degree of complexity or livingness of the urban space. The results show the Earth's surface is growing more complex from an economic perspective, and the dynamics of urban complexity are more explicit from nighttime light imagery than from population data. We further discuss the implications in city science, aiming to help create and recreate urban environments that are more resilient and livable by fostering organized complexity from the perspective of living structure.

Weijia Zhang, Jindong Han, Zhao Xu et al.

The integration of machine learning techniques has become a cornerstone in the development of intelligent urban services, significantly contributing to the enhancement of urban efficiency, sustainability, and overall livability. Recent advancements in foundational models, such as ChatGPT, have introduced a paradigm shift within the fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence. These models, with their exceptional capacity for contextual comprehension, problem-solving, and task adaptability, present a transformative opportunity to reshape the future of smart cities and drive progress toward Urban General Intelligence (UGI). Despite increasing attention to Urban Foundation Models (UFMs), this rapidly evolving field faces critical challenges, including the lack of clear definitions, systematic reviews, and universalizable solutions. To address these issues, this paper first introduces the definition and concept of UFMs and highlights the distinctive challenges involved in their development. Furthermore, we present a data-centric taxonomy that classifies existing research on UFMs according to the various urban data modalities and types. In addition, we propose a prospective framework designed to facilitate the realization of versatile UFMs, aimed at overcoming the identified challenges and driving further progress in this field. Finally, this paper systematically summarizes and discusses existing benchmarks and datasets related to UFMs, and explores the wide-ranging applications of UFMs within urban contexts, illustrating their potential to significantly impact and transform urban systems. A comprehensive collection of relevant research papers and open-source resources have been collated and are continuously updated at: https://github.com/usail-hkust/Awesome-Urban-Foundation-Models.

Airton Deppman

The emerging field of the Science of Cities has unveiled previously undiscovered facets of urban life. Contrary to the expectation of chaotic behaviour influenced solely by cultural and geographic factors, cities globally exhibit universal power-law trends in urban scaling. Leveraging recent advances in mathematical descriptions of urban dynamics, this study investigates the interplay among fundamental allometry, fractal dimension, and the number of close contacts within cities. Through a dynamic exploration of these factors, a causal relationship is established, shedding light on the intricate dynamics that shape urban environments. Remarkably, our analysis suggests that the Big Five personality traits play a pivotal role in determining the fractal aspects of urban life. This research contributes to the understanding of urban scaling and proposes a novel connection between human personality traits and the structural patterns observed in cities, opening avenues for further interdisciplinary exploration.

Adam Millard-Ball, Natasha Timmons

We explore whether policies to promote electric vehicles (EVs) impede efforts to reduce vehicle travel. We hypothesize that the presence of EV chargers reduces respondents' willingness to support (i) the removal of on-street parking to make space for bicycle lanes, and (ii) infill development on surface parking lots. We also hypothesize that the availability of EVs reduces public support for broader vehicle travel reduction policies. Using a randomized survey-based experiment, we find no evidence to support any of these hypotheses.

Magdalena Ana Sprechmann Gomez

This paper is a preliminary inquiry into the work of Burle Marx in Uruguay between the decades of 1950 and 1980. In this period, he had some piecemeal collaborations with two pioneers of modern design in Uruguay: Luis García Pardo and Walter Pintos Risso. They attempted to materialize pragmatically the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk, i.e. of total artwork, produced for a local bourgeoisie. This was expressed through architecture, gardens, built-in works of art, such as sculptures and murals, designer furniture and advertising graphic design for their own products.   As research methodology, primary sources were revised, such as document resource centers, which are still not public, press of the day and advertising brochures; the works under study were visited and interviews were conducted with people associated with the work of Burle Marx and the above-mentioned Uruguayan architects.

Z. Gao, Kun Song, Yingji Pan et al.

Abstract Urban green space provides refuges for species that are unintentionally introduced by humans and which do not belong to the remnants of natural habitats in urban areas. However, the quantitative relationships between urban green space properties and these spontaneous species are unclear. To address this, we surveyed plant species occurring in urban green patches in Kunming city, which is located in a biodiversity hotspot in southwest China. We classified spontaneous plants into native, non-native and invasive plant species. A total of 386 spontaneous species belonging to 278 genera and 92 families were recorded in 190 patches. Most of the recorded species were herbaceous plants (76.2 %). While invasive species constituted a relatively small proportion of the total species pool (17.9 %), six out of ten of the most frequently occurring species were invasive. Regression models inspired by the theory of Island Biogeography show that total, native, non-native and invasive spontaneous species richness in urban green patches were best explained by the size of the ‘island’ (patch area), dispersal limitations (as expressed by ‘distance to city boundary’) and edge effects (as shown by the landscape shape index). While the set of drivers of spontaneous plants is similar for the different groups of species, the relative importance of each driver varies among them. Our study provides quantification of drivers of biodiversity patterns in urban green space. Based on this understanding, planning and management of urban green space can be adapted to maximize spontaneous plant conservation in rapidly urbanizing biodiversity hotspot regions.

Kayleigh Swanson

A growing number of cities are preparing for climate change by developing adaptation plans, but little is known about how these plans and their implementation affect the vulnerability of groups experiencing various forms of underlying social inequity. This review synthesizes research exploring the justice and equity issues inherent in climate change adaptation planning to lay the foundation for critical assessment of climate action plans from an equity perspective. The findings presented illuminate the ways in which inequity in adaptation planning favours certain privileged groups while simultaneously denying representation and resources to marginalized communities. The review reveals the specific ways inequity is experienced by disadvantaged groups in the context of climate change and begins to unpack the relationship between social inequity, vulnerability, and adaptation planning. This information provides the necessary background for future research that examines whether, and to what extent, urban adaptation plans prioritize social vulnerability relative to economic and environmental imperatives.

Jorge E. González, P. Ramamurthy, R. Bornstein et al.

Abstract The Urban Climate and Resiliency-Science Working Group (i.e., The WG) was convened in the summer of 2018 to explore the scientific grand challenges related to climate resiliency of cities. The WG leveraged the presentations at the 10th International Conference on Urban Climate (ICUC10) held in New York City (NYC) on 6–10 August 2018 as input forum. ICUC10 was a collaboration between the International Association of Urban Climate, American Meteorological Society, and World Meteorological Organization. It attracted more than 600 participants from more than 50 countries, resulting in close to 700 oral and poster presentations under the common theme of “Sustainable & Resilient Urban Environments”. ICUC10 covered topics related to urban climate and weather processes with far-reaching implications to weather forecasting, climate change adaptation, air quality, health, energy, urban planning, and governance. This article provides a synthesis of the analysis of the current state of the art and of the recommendations of the WG for future research along each of the four Grand Challenges in the context of urban climate and weather resiliency; Modeling, Observations, Cyber-Informatics, and Knowledge Transfer & Applications.

Mahsa Bazrafshan, A. Tabrizi, N. Bauer et al.

Abstract Globalization and mobile societies challenge large cities to provide not only basic services, such as water or housing, but also places where long-term residents and (forced) migrants are able to form bonds and attribute meanings. The question of what types of urban settings can foster place attachment through interaction has been poorly investigated. To address this research gap, a qualitative study was conducted in Iran to investigate how long-term residents (Persian) and bi-cultural migrants (Afghans who migrated to Iran and stayed there for more than 5 yrs) form bonds with urban parks. Participants were given a standardized round-trip of Persian gardens and a modern urban park. Theory-guided, problem-centered interviews were recorded and analyzed with directed qualitative content analysis. Considerable differences were found among both groups in terms of how people created attachments with the different places. For both user groups both park types enabled links to the place via practical and visual appreciation, social interactions, emotions and garden structure. In contrast to the modern park, the Persian gardens offered many more opportunities to link to the place via shared history, meanings and memories. These three prominent drivers of place identity offered long-term residents excellent means to establish a bond with that place. Shared history and meanings, however, rarely allowed bi-cultural migrants to become attached to the place; for this group, certain elements of Persian gardens triggered memories that enabled them to view the places of origin and relocation as interconnected locations capable of providing different, yet compatible experiences. As theory suggests, such access helps to reduce the disruption of moving to a new place. Our results help to empirically test and broaden current place attachment theories and encourage city planners to preserve and develop parks that satisfy more than the ‘place dependency needs’ of users.

W. Boterman, S. Musterd, C. Pacchi et al.

Social and social-spatial inequality are on the rise in the Global North. This has resulted in increasing segmentation between population groups with different social and ethnic backgrounds, and in differentiated access to cultural and material assets. With these changes, the relation between segregation in the educational sphere and segregation in the residential sphere has become crucial for understanding social reproduction and intergenerational social mobility. However, knowledge about this relation is still limited. We argue that the institutional and spatial contexts are key dimensions to consider if we want to expand this knowledge. The institutional context regards the extent of public funding, the degree to which parental choice and/or geographical proximity drive school selection, the role and status of private schools and the religious and pedagogical pluralism of the educational system. The spatial context refers to the geographies of education: the ethnic and social composition of school populations and their reputations; the underlying levels and trends of residential segregation; and the spatial distribution of schools in urban space. In this introduction to the special issue we will address these interrelated dimensions, with reference to theoretical and empirical contributions from the existing body of literature; and with reference to the contributions in this special issue. School segregation emerges from the studies included in this special issue as a relevant issue, differently framed according to the institutional and spatial contexts. A comparative typology will be proposed to illustrate how school segregation is peculiarly shaped in different national and local contexts.