Oscar A. Martínez-Martínez, Oscar A. Martínez-Martínez, Claudia V. Zamudio-Lazarín
et al.
IntroductionIn middle-income countries such as Mexico, housing adequacy remains a central challenge, particularly in relation to the physical conditions of dwellings and the provision of essential services, including potable water, drainage, and electricity. This study examines how the quality of living spaces, access to basic services, and conditions of vulnerability are perceived across municipalities with different levels of marginalization.MethodsThe study involved a literature review, the development of a sampling strategy based on the Municipal Marginalization Index (IMM), and the conduct of 235 semi-structured interviews. The data were coded using thematic analysis and interpreted through an analytical framework that integrates material and subjective dimensions of habitability. The analysis focused on physical dwelling conditions, such as construction materials, structural stability, and service provision, as well as subjective perceptions of comfort, safety, and vulnerability.ResultsThe findings indicate that in highly marginalized areas, households face chronic water scarcity, infrastructural fragility, and exposure to environmental risks. In these contexts, comfort is often associated with minimal protection, and safety is linked to community support networks. In less marginalized municipalities, improved construction conditions and greater access to basic services contribute to higher perceived stability, although concerns regarding water availability and neighborhood security persist.DiscussionThe results show that marginalization shapes both material housing conditions and the lived experience of habitability. These insights highlight the need for in-situ upgrading strategies, community-centered service provision, and neighborhood-scale planning to improve living conditions in marginalized urban contexts.
As an important ecosystem service, water conservation is influenced by land use related to human activities. In this study, we first evaluated spatial and temporal changes in water conservation in Baicheng City, western Jilin Province, from 2000 to 2020. Then, we identified three different scenarios: the natural development scenario (NDS), cropland protection scenario (CPS), and ecological protection scenario (EPS). We coupled the Patch-generating Land Use Simulation (PLUS) and Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) models to predict the distribution of land use types and water conservation in Baicheng City under these scenarios for 2030. The results showed the following: (1) The average water conservation in Baicheng City from 2000 to 2020 was 7.08 mm. (2) Areas with higher water conservation were distributed in the northwest and northeast, while lower water conservation areas were distributed in the central and southwest of Baicheng City. (3) The simulation results of the future pattern of land use show an increasing water conservation trend in all three scenarios. Compared with the other two scenarios, the ecological protection scenario is the most suitable option for the current development planning of Baicheng City. Under the ecological protection scenario (EPS), ecological land is strictly protected, the area of agricultural land increases to some extent, and the overall structure of changes in land use becomes more rational. This study provides a reference for land resource allocation and ecosystem conservation.
A project that stands out among Croatian hotel architecture of the second half of the 20th century is the unique Slavonia Hotel System (SHS), designed in the mid-1970s by a team of experts from the Urban Institute of Croatia and headed by architect Matija Salaj. The SHS project was based on the principle of standardization in terms of spatial-functional organization, architectural design, interior design, furnishing and visual communication elements as well as operation and market penetration, and was envisaged as the driving force behind continental tourism development in Slavonia and Baranja. This paper examines the planning framework, program specifications, and urban-architectural design of the hospitality and tourist facilities of the SHS (including a city hotel model in two variations, a spa hotel, and a motel) by utilizing sources from Salaj’s estate and archival documentation from the Urban Institute. Notably, it includes Salaj’s explanations of the SHS project and his perspectives on the features of hospitality and tourist facility architecture, as presented in professional journals and conference publications. These aspects are complemented by a review of tourism development trends in the 1970s and the characteristics of hotel architecture in market economy.
Current research underlines the important role of arrival infrastructures in urban spaces in enabling and shaping migrants’ arrival. These include arrival brokers, individuals who help newcomers access resources. As yet, we have little knowledge on brokers’ informal and commercial practices in the context of arrival, especially in European cities, whereby brokers unsettle common “distinctions between ‘state’ and ‘market,’ as well as ‘formal’ and ‘informal’” (Lindquist, 2012, p. 75). This article aims to contribute to our understanding of arrival brokers by shedding light on commercial brokering in an arrival area in Dortmund, Germany, looking at the relations between brokers and newcomer clients. The study is based on ethnographic research, including one year of participant observation in a broker’s shop, and interviews with both brokers and newcomers. Covering both perspectives, this article analyses how commercial arrival brokering shapes newcomers’ access to resources. The findings offer new insights into arrival brokers’ multiple facets of in/formal and commercial infrastructuring. The article shows how brokers’ accessibility depends on spatial, social, financial, and temporal factors. It is relational both within the local context of service provision and through setting the conditions governing resource access. Arrival brokers can influence newcomers’ arrival processes by enabling, channelling (and sometimes blocking) resource access while also offering opportunities for newcomers to circumvent and compensate for other—more formal—forms of support. Commercial brokering evolves as a practice between brokers and newcomers within, parallel to, and beyond the support provided by more formal institutions.
Mohammad Amini, Longsheng Deng, Waqas Hassan
et al.
The precise evaluation of subsurface soil information is paramount for effective infrastructure design and planning. Geotechnical soil maps (GSMs) play a pivotal role in estimating subsurface properties. As Kabul City, Afghanistan’s largest metropolitan area, undergoes rapid expansion and the demand for safer infrastructure rises, the necessity for precise geotechnical information becomes increasingly urgent. Nevertheless, there is a lack of comprehensive studies on urban geotechnical zoning maps in Afghanistan. Therefore, to this end, this study utilizes inverse distance weighting (IDW) interpolation approaches for the construction and characterization of GSMs using a traditional geographic information system (GIS). Data about soil types and standard penetration (N-value) up to 30 m depth were extracted from 130 locations in New Kabul City, Afghanistan. GSMs incorporating N-value and soil types were constructed utilizing the IDW technique within the ArcGIS platform. The outcomes reveal that the subjected region was dominated by cohesive soil with N-values varying from 7 to 45 in three different sections. The findings exhibit strong empirical correlations between N-values and depth, with an R2 value of 0.95 and an RMSD value of 0.71. Moreover, the correlation coefficient to predict soil type classification is 97%, and it stands at 95% for N-value prediction. These results facilitate the rapid evaluation of subsoil strength and stiffness, offering valuable insights for project planners and feasibility researchers.
Abstract Developing sustainable urban systems is a fundamental societal challenge for the 21st century, and central Texas faces particularly synergistic challenges of a rapidly growing urban population and a projected increasingly drought-prone climate. To assess the history of urbanization impacts on watersheds here, we analyzed 51 cores from bald cypress trees in paired urban and rural watersheds in Austin, Texas. We find a significant contrast between rural and urbanized watersheds. In the rural watershed, tree-ring-width growth histories (“chronologies”) from 1844–2018 significantly and positively correlate (p < 0.01) with (1) one another, and (2) regional instrumental and proxy records of drought. In the urbanized watershed, by contrast, chronologies weakly correlate with one another, with instrumental records of drought, and with the rural chronologies and regional records. Relatively weak drought limitations to urban tree growth are consistent with the significant present-day transfer of municipal water from urban infrastructure by leakage and irrigation to the natural hydrologic system. We infer a significant, long-term contribution from infrastructure to baseflow in urbanized watersheds. In contrast to the common negative impacts of ‘urban stream syndrome’, such sustained baseflow in watersheds with impaired or failing infrastructure may be an unintended positive consequence for stream ecosystems, as a mitigation against projected extended 21st-century droughts. Additionally, riparian trees may serve as a proxy for past impacts of urbanization on natural streams, which may inform sustainable urban development.
Natural and geological environmental conditions have an important impact on the planning and construction of sponge cities. This paper analyzes geological factors that influence the usage of natural sponge bodies, taking the Shuanghe lake district of Zhengzhou airport zone as an example. An evaluation system with seven factors has been established and the weights of these factors are determined using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. Overlay analysis is then carried out on all factors using GIS to evaluate the geological suitability of the construction of the sponge city. The results show that geologically suitable area for city construction in Shuanghe lake district accounts for 12.3%, relatively suitable area accounts for 76.1%, and relatively unsuitable area accounts for 11.6%. For suitable and relatively suitable areas, we should make full use of the advantages of surface infiltration, vadose zone transportation and aquifer storage to build a sponge city infrastructure with geological engineering as the main component, supplemented by engineering measures such as surface water storage and drainage, and jointly establish a sustainable urban hydrological cycle. For less suitable areas, artificial rain and flood control works, such as roof garden, should be considered. The findings of this paper can serve as an important reference for sponge city planning and construction not only in the research area but also in other regions with similar geological conditions.
Ecology, Engineering geology. Rock mechanics. Soil mechanics. Underground construction
Irasema Alcántara-Ayala, Ian Burton, Allan Lavell
et al.
In the 2020s, understanding disaster risk requires a strong and clear recognition of values and goals that influence the use of political and economic power and social authority to guide growth and development. This configuration of values, goals, power and authority may also lead to concrete drivers of risk at any one time. Building on previous disaster risk frameworks and experiences from practice, since 2010, the ‘Forensic Investigations of Disasters (FORIN)’ approach has been developed to support transdisciplinary research on the transformational pathways societies may follow to recognise and address root causes and drivers of disaster risk. This article explores and assesses the achievements and failures of the FORIN approach. It also focuses on shedding light upon key requirements for new approaches and understandings of disaster risk research. The new requirements stem not only from the uncompleted ambitions of FORIN and the forensic approach but also from dramatic and ongoing transformational changes characterised by climate change, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the threat of global international confrontation, among other potential crises, both those that can be identified and those not yet identified or unknown.
Contribution: Disasters associated with extreme natural events cannot be treated in isolation. A comprehensive “all risks” or “all disasters” approach is essential for a global transformation, which could lead to a better world order. To achieve this, an Intergovernmental Panel for Disaster Risk is suggested to assess risk science periodically and work towards sustainability, human rights, and accountability, within a development and human security frame and on a systemic basis and integrated perspective.
Car-dominated daily travel has caused many severe and urgent urban problems across the world, and such travel patterns have been found to be related to the built environment. However, few existing studies have uncovered the nonlinear relationship between the built environment and car dependency using a machine learning method, thus failing to provide policymakers with nuanced evidence-based guidance on reducing car dependency. Using data from Puget Sound regional household travel surveys, this study analyzes the complicated relationship between car dependency and the built environment using the gradient boost decision tree method. The results show that people living in high-density areas are less likely to rely on private cars than those living in low-density neighborhoods. Both threshold and nonlinear effects are observed in the relationships between the built environment and car dependency. Increasing road density promotes car usage when the road density is below 6 km/km2. However, the positive association between road density and car use is not observed in areas with high road density. Increasing pedestrian-oriented road density decreases the likelihood of using cars as the main mode. Such a negative effect is most effective when the pedestrian-oriented road density is over 14.5 km/km2. More diverse land use also discourages people’s car use, probably because those areas are more likely to promote active modes. Destination accessibility has an overall negative effect and a significant threshold effect on car dependency. These findings can help urban planners formulate tailored land-use interventions to reduce car dependency.
AbstractThe adoption of the European Landscape Convention (ELC) has wrought a profound evolution in the landscape planning discipline, contributing to the integration of the landscape into planning policy. This paper explores the operative significance of including the landscape dimension in local urban planning policies. Adopting an inter-scalar approach, the research analyses the renewal of local urban planning in light of the innovations introduced by the Apulia Regional Landscape Plan (PPTR), an exemplary case of ELC implementation in Italy. One of the spatial strategies indicated in the PPTR provides valuable insights into the complex relationships between the city and the countryside. That strategy, the City-Country Pact, interacts with urban transformations and, as a result, with municipal planning. The paper utilises PPTR indicators to explore how some Apulian municipalities interpret and implement the City-Country Pact. A comparative analysis of case studies outlines the approaches and conditions by which urban planning can effectively renew itself through the ELC landscape approach, influencing plan philosophy, regulations and practices. The paper also points out the current limitations of such processes.
Purpose
In architectural education, the most important outcome aimed for architect candidates to acquire is the ability to show empathy. This study focuses on designing for users who have special physical needs while addressing the concept of establishing empathy together with universal designing principles in architectural education.
Design/Methodology/Approach
The empathic design method has been selected as the method of this study. As part of the study, it is aimed for students to offer a design solution in which they would fictionalize a universal design concept together with the empathic design which grounds on universal design principles.
Findings
As a result of the study, it was observed that when given a key method during the design process, students could approach the design with different points of view and interpret the datum with different approaches.
Research Limitations/Implications
This study, as part of the Çukurova University Department of Architecture Interior Design class, students were asked to implement interior design projects using the empathic design method with user groups of their choice in terms of characteristic and age range following the empathic design process.
Social/Practical Implications
It is to develop the awareness of architecture students in the creation process and such studies with different approaches and models to develop their perspectives.
Originality/Value
To increase the prevalence of accessibility and the participation of the disabled in society, the empathic design method can be foreseen to be a key method in other studies in architectural education.
This issue (5.2) of Transactions of AESOP brings together a selection of papers which address current themes and issues in planning education. Two of the papers reflect on the experience of teaching modules submitted to recent rounds of the AESOP Excellence in Teaching Award (ETA), one reports on an experience of internationalisation in planning education, and one is an invited paper by Andrea Frank the present Chair of the AESOP ETA Committee. They all provide original and insightful contributions addressing key themes in contemporary planning education including, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, new technologies and modes of teaching delivery, the teaching of landscape in planning programmes, and, the internationalisation of planning cohorts and curricula.
Reham N AlJasser,1 Mohammed A AlSarhan,1 Dalal H Alotaibi,1 Saleh AlOraini,1 Abdul Sadekh Ansari,2 Syed Rashid Habib,3 Muhammad Sohail Zafar4,5 1Department of Periodontics and Community Dentistry, College of Dentistry, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 2Dental University Hospital, King Saud University Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 3Department of Prosthetic Dental Sciences, College of Dentistry, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 4Department of Restorative Dentistry, College of Dentistry, Taibah University, Al Madinah, Al Munawwarah, 41311, Saudi Arabia; 5Department of Dental Materials, Islamic International Dental College, Riphah International University, Islamabad, 44000, PakistanCorrespondence: Syed Rashid HabibDepartment of Prosthetic Dental Sciences, College of Dentistry, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaTel +966-1-467 7325Fax +966-1-467 8548Email syhabib@ksu.edu.saObjective: To investigate and compare the various restorative and prosthetic parameters affecting peri-implant tissues’ health following dental implant placement and functional loading.Methods: A total of 484 dental implants (length> 6mm, non-turned, 2– 3 piece, titanium – Straumann) were evaluated for patients (male=271; female=213). Study variables such as patient’s age, gender, implant restoration/crown type, crown retention, and implant crown status were assessed against various periodontal parameters (periodontal pocket depth (PPD), plaque index (PI), bleeding on probing (BOP), gingival color, and crestal bone level). All the data were analyzed using the SPSS software.Results: Out of all the investigated dental implants, 201 (42%) of the implants investigated presented with BOP > one-site of the peri-implant mucosa (peri-implant mucositis), 115 (23.76%) presented with peri-implant marginal bone loss. PPD value was significantly lower in good crown status (p< 0.0001). Majority of the patients with good crown status had no plaque accumulation based on the PI scores (52.7%). Only 35% of the patients whose crown status was good were having BOP when compared with 65% who did not have any BOP recorded. Gingival color (pale pink and red) showed statistically significant association with crown type (porcelain fused to metal v/s all ceramic) (p=0.005). Most of patients with crown status good had no change in their radiographic findings (94%) compared to only 6% who had implant threads exposed (p< 0.0001).Conclusion: Optimal design of Implant prosthetic factors are vital for avoiding the development of peri-implant mucositis/peri-implantitis and must be considered during treatment planning while restoring dental implants.Keywords: peri-implantitis, dental implants, implants, implant prosthesis, implant health, implant mucositis
Sartika Djamaluddin, Achmad Nizar Hidayanto, Sita Wardhani
Wide access to formal finance for poor households through distribution of social assistance via electronic money (E-money) is believed to accelerate eradication of poverty. We would like to find out the beneficiaries response to this payment method. This aims of this study is to investigate the perception of beneficiaries towards distribution of social assistance through e-money. We surveyed 230 beneficiaries in Jakarta, Cirebon and Pasuruan. The result of research indicates that the perception of PKH beneficiaries related to the cost, benefits and security of e-money is relatively good. However, from the aspect of ease of use and the respondents’ desire to use e-money, the perception is quite low.
Economic growth, development, planning, Regional economics. Space in economics
The paper entitled “The role of gender in policy implementation of poverty reduction in
poor households in rural areas today - A case study in Ky Son Commune, Thuy Nguyen District,
Hai Phong City in 2012” used both quantitative and qualitative methods to study the factors
affecting gender roles in policy implementation of poverty reduction in Ky Son commune, Thuy
Nguyen district, Hai Phong city. The study found four statistical factors that impacted on gender
roles in policy implementation of poverty reduction, including the policy of training occupation,
creating jobs, loan credit, training to improve knowledge and population - family planning.
The sustainable city, slogan of the modern utopias, is a place full of potential, offering different freedoms, links and meaning, a theatre for learning and social expression. Can we imagine building it without its inhabitants? After all, the structures created by the inhabitants originate in their dreams, imaginations and decisions. The sustainable city offers the promise of putting the enchantment back into living places by accentuating participative governance of planning. Taking the hypothesis that eco-neighbourhoods can facilitate experimentation in housing and the sharing of living spaces by fostering resident involvement, we have crossed the discourse analysis from the planning authorities of the corpus 'EcoQuartiers 2011' with three case studies from the Bordeaux urban area. We will show that the experimentations freely entered into by the residents come up against numerous restraints (property, funding, planning), whereas participative housing projects initiated by housing providers and local councils are closer to real estate operations of social home ownership. Future inhabitants imagine the project but within a fixed framework. The desires of resident groups to explore alternative modes of living demonstrate a repolitisation, in so far as they develop new forms of political involvement, off the institutional beaten track.
V prispevku predstavljamo in zagovarjamo tezo, da ima Slovenija nizek stanovanjski standard in da večina prebivalcev živi v stanovanjih, ki jih je po mednarodno uveljavljenih standardih mogoče opredeliti za prenaseljena. Resničnost te teze dokazujemo s statističnimi podatki ter tudi s pomočjo pregleda literature in predstavitvijo stališč različnih domačih avtorjev, ki so obravnavali to temo. Poleg obširnega pregleda tuje in domače literature na to temo predstavljamo tudi pregled zgodovinskih dejavnikov, za katere ocenjujemo, da so v preteklosti pomembno vplivali na vzpostavitev in uveljavitev današnjih stanovanjskih standardov. V sklepnem delu posebej poudarjamo danes prevladujoče napačno stališče, ki ga opredeljujemo kot najpomembnejši zaviralni dejavnik pri razmišljanjih o potrebnem izboljšanju slovenskih stanovanjskih standardov. V tem delu podajamo nove teoretične razlage o tem, zakaj se v Sloveniji še vedno vzdržuje nizek površinski stanovanjski standard. Končni namen prispevka pa je sprožiti izvedbo dejanskih ukrepov, ki bodo pripeljali do uveljavljanja ustreznejših standardov in izboljšanja stanja.