Hasil untuk "Metropolitan areas"

Christian SCHACHTNER, Nadine BAUMANN

The article compares the digital transformation strategies and regional development trajectories of North Carolina and the FrankfurtRheinMain metropolitan region, examining how structural, demographic and economic conditions shape their capacity to deploy smart services and strengthen competitiveness. Objectives are to analyze similarities and differences in digital infrastructure, skills, governance and inclusion, and to assess how regional characteristics influence the design and impact of digital initiatives. This is important because both regions are economically strong hubs that seek to leverage digitalization for long-term growth, social inclusion and quality of life. The study builds on concepts of smart cities, digital equity, regional innovation systems and metropolitan governance, and connects US debates on closing the digital divide with European discussions on smart city development and digital regional policy. It links empirical data and policy documents from North Carolina’s digital equity and broadband programs with strategic initiatives and statistical profiles of FrankfurtRheinMain as a German metropolitan region. Methodologically, the paper applies a comparative case study approach, combining document analysis of policy strategies, investment programs and regional statistics with a structured cross-case comparison along the dimensions of infrastructure, skills, social inclusion and economic orientation. Results show that North Carolina prioritizes massive investment in basic broadband infrastructure and targeted measures against the digital divide, while FrankfurtRheinMain builds on a more advanced infrastructure to focus on smart city projects, 5G rollout and digitalization of finance and urban services. Both regions strongly emphasize digital skills, but differ in their instruments for social inclusion, with North Carolina relying more on affordability programs and device access, and FrankfurtRheinMain concentrating on groups with specific participation barriers. The findings imply that academics and policymakers should treat digital transformation as context-dependent, requiring place-sensitive mixes of infrastructure investment, skills development and governance coordination. For practitioners, the study highlights transferable practices in smart city development from FrankfurtRheinMain and in digital equity and inclusion from North Carolina. The paper’s value lies in offering a structured, transatlantic comparison that integrates economic, infrastructural and social dimensions of digital transformation at regional scale. It contributes an original dual focus on smart services and digital equity, demonstrating how two advanced regions can follow divergent yet complementary paths toward similar strategic goals, and outlining concrete areas where mutual policy learning is feasible.

Harin Min, Jieun Oh, Jiwoo Park et al.

Several studies have examined the nationwide or multi-region relationship between ambient temperature and suicide mortality; however, evidence of comprehensive roles of urbanicity that can affect temperature, suicide, and risk-risk populations was limited. To reduce the gaps in knowledge, this study examined the nationwide ambient temperature-suicide association and heterogeneous high-risk populations by urbanicity levels and sex/age groups, based on a time-stratified case-crossover design with national mortality data (2015-2019). In the total population (65,645 suicides), we found an inverted J-shaped relationship between ambient temperature and suicide, and across all populations, higher temperature was associated with an increased risk of suicide mortality. Nevertheless, the association differed by urbanicity level, sex, and age group. First, in the total population, metropolitan and less-urban areas showed the stronger ORs (odd ratios between the maximum suicide temperature and 20th percentile of the temperature; metropolitan OR: 1.471, 95% CI: 1.141-1.898; less-urban OR: 1.631, 95% CI: 0.968-2.747) than mid-urban areas. In metropolitan areas, stronger ORs were observed in individuals aged 65 years or older (1.926, 1.175-3.157) and 0-44 years (1.575, 0.951-2.608) than in those aged 45-64 years. In mid-urban areas, all subgroups showed no evident association except for people aged 65 years or older. Whereas, less-urban males showed a marginally higher OR (1.667, 0.911-3.051) than less-urban females, although we could not observe sex differences in other areas. Our findings provide evidence for establishing more precise urban health policies and social interventions to reduce the risk of suicide related to ambient temperatures.

Samir Rodrigues HADDAD

Resumo Este artigo investiga as temáticas, os fatores e as dimensões que poderiam potencialmente integrar modelos de avaliação do exercício da cidadania em programas e espaços de inclusão digital. Trata-se de um estudo quantitativo conduzido em Telecentros em Belo Horizonte, Estado de Minas Gerais, Brasil. Para as análises foram utilizados modelos de estatísticas correlacionais. Os resultados permitiram desenvolver uma proposta de um modelo conceitual universal. Abrange as diversas dimensões da inclusão digital, contribuindo para a avaliação dos impactos das Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação na democratização da cidadania digital, com foco no Programa de Telecentros no Brasil.

Alba Badia, Ricard Segura-Barrero, Sergi Ventura et al.

Abstract Urbanization converts natural landscapes into impervious surfaces, altering local climate and air quality. Greening strategies are adopted to mitigate these effects, yet their effectiveness depends on land use, urban form, geography, and climate interactions. Using an air quality model with an urban canopy scheme, we evaluate how land use changes-urban expansion, agriculture, and parks-affect urban climate and chemical processes, influencing air pollutants like NO2, O3, VOCs, and PMs. Applied to future land-use scenarios in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, our results show that a 45–55% increase in urbanization raises surface temperatures and consequently evening O3 levels by up to 8%. Replacing 6–10% of urban land and 30–40% of natural vegetation areas into agriculture reduces O3 by up to 10%, but increases NH3 (up to 90%) and aerosols (up to 12%). Doubling urban green spaces reduce NO2 (up to 3%) and increases O3 (up to 5%) and SOA (up to 14%). Our study emphasizes the trade-offs of urban greening and the need for integrated planning to improve air quality.

Daniel Hirata, Lia de Mattos Rocha, Orlando Alves dos Santos Junior

Eduardo Castellani Gomes dos Reis, Maura Pardini Bicudo Véras

Resumo As transformações contemporâneas ligadas à tecnologia, ao mundo do trabalho, ao desemprego, e aos efeitos da pandemia de covid-19 no Brasil alteraram as dinâmicas territoriais. Entretanto, tais fatores apenas se acrescentaram à perversa estabilidade das desigualdades socioespaciais nas cidades brasileiras, em particular em São Paulo. As dificuldades de muitas pessoas de inserção no mercado de trabalho e de moradia, ao revelarem a segregação social vigente em uma cidade ligada aos fluxos do capitalismo global, trazem cenários de congestionamento e de dificuldades de acesso aos locais de trabalho e ao ambiente construído. Além de revelar a luta cotidiana majoritária devido à iniquidade das oportunidades e dos deslocamentos, indicam o importante papel da mobilidade urbana que pode vir a assumir protagonismo enquanto política pública.

Md Mustiafiz Al Mamun, Steffen Nijhuis, Caroline Newton

Understanding the dynamics of land use and land cover (LULC) change in today’s context of rapid urbanization is critical for sustainable urban planning and environmental conservation. Therefore, the research aim is to understand the LULC changes in the Chattogram Metropolitan Area and to assess the policy implications of these changes for sustainable urban development. Through a comparative analysis of LULC maps for two periods (1997–2007; 2007–2017), we investigated the transformation of a detailed planning zone before and after Detailed Area Plan (DAP) approval. Using quantitative data analysis and policy review, we elucidated the impacts of urbanization trends on local ecosystems—specifically the conversion of forest cover and waterscape use. The findings reveal a significant conversion of forested and waterscape areas to urban and peri-urban landscapes, highlighting the urgent need for sustainable planning interventions that focus on these peri-urban areas. The study further critiques the DAP’s effectiveness, revealing a disconnect between regional policy implementation and local outcomes. This research proposes a validated, scalable framework for urban master plans that adapts to the complex socioecological contexts of rapidly urbanizing regions.

Claudio Del Grande, Janusz Kaczorowski, Marie-Pascale Pomey

<h4>Background</h4>Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Little is known about the organizational priorities of patients and clinicians involved in primary cardiovascular care. This study aimed to identify their shared top priorities and explore on which aspects their perspectives differed.<h4>Methods</h4>A three-round modified online Delphi study was carried out with patients and clinicians in seven academic primary care settings from metropolitan, suburban and small-town areas in Quebec, Canada. Patient partners experienced in the mobilization of their experiential knowledge also participated in the study. Following an "open" round, the items elicited were assessed by a combined rating and ranking approach. Items achieving an initial consensus level ≥70% were reassessed and then rank-ordered based on their final scores. Levels of consensus achieved among patients and clinicians were compared using Fisher's Exact tests.<h4>Results</h4>Thirty panelists completed the study (9 clinic patients, 7 patient partners and 14 clinicians). Out of 41 organizational aspects generated, six top priorities were shared by patients and clinicians. These related to listening and tailoring care to each patient, provision of personalized information, rapid response in the event of a problem, keeping professional training up-to-date, and relational and informational continuity of care. Statistically significant differences were found between patients' and clinicians' perspectives regarding the importance of offering healthy lifestyle and prevention activities at the clinic (lower for patients), timely access to the treating physician (higher for patients), and effective collaboration with specialist physicians (higher for patients).<h4>Conclusion</h4>Although their views differ on some organizational aspects, patients and clinicians share a small set of top priorities for primary cardiovascular care that may be transferable to other chronic diseases. These top priorities should remain a central focus of clinical settings, alongside other primary care reform goals.

Mohammed Kamal Taki Imrani, Eric Champagne

This article focuses on mobility issues in Montreal, whose metropolitan transportation policies are presented as one of the major ambitions of large North American metropolitan areas. Empirically, we are interested in a recent transportation megaproject: the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) in Montreal, an electric light-rail transit network spanning 67 kilometers in the Greater Metropolitan Area. These types of megaprojects involve significant governance challenges and certain criticisms due to the involvement of several actors from different backgrounds and defending different interests, which places. This is why we believe that it is important to address this issue from the point of view of metropolitan governance through the agenda-setting of urban megaprojects. The originality of this article is that it demonstrates how presenting the REM project as a public-public partnership, between the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and the Government of Québec, opened the door to favoritism for the Caisse which influenced the choice of a political solution in Greater Montreal. By mobilizing Kingdon's model, we conclude that windows of opportunity cannot open without choosing a governance model during the agenda-setting phase.

Andrea Membretti, Fabio Lucchini, Monica Gilli et al.

Even when they have access to housing and employment, international migrants struggle to develop their own agency, i.e. the capacity to act in their own life contexts, exercising citizenship rights within substantive inclusion processes in the wider communities. The territorial context in fact, especially in rural and mountainous areas such as the Alpine ones analysed here, seems in many ways to represent a limit to the development of capacities and exercise of rights. Difficulties in accessing public space and public sphere, scarce social recognition, low status, housing isolation (as is the case of those who live in small mountain villages), professional ghettoisation: these are factors that, even in presence of an acceptable working and housing inclusion, make it difficult for international migrants to exercise their rights, to have their skills recognised, and, ultimately, to develop an agency genuinely linked to their capabilities. In this article, with reference to the action-research activities carried out in 2020-22 by the Horizon2020 MATILDE project in the Italian Alpine areas of South Tyrol and the Metropolitan City of Turin, attention is focused on the policies that could favour the effective migrants’ agency in mountain territories.

Marcio Valério Effgen, Augusto Cesar Salomão Mozine

Resumo Este texto objetiva analisar o desenvolvimento da política ambiental urbana do município de Vila Velha-ES nos dois mandatos de gestão municipal entre 2009 e 2016. Busca, assim, verificar de que forma o município situado na Região Metropolitana da Grande Vitória-RMGV ocupa sua agenda política ambiental urbana numa ótica de sustentabilidade urbana com elementos de justiça ambiental e ecologia política, baseado no debate de racionalidade ambiental ecocêntrica. Tal análise se perfaz nos dois planos de gestão municipal e em entrevistas com autoridades que ocuparam cargos de relevância em Vila Velha-ES, para verificar a preocupação quanto àa maneira como a administração pública trata a ocupação desordenada do território e os conflitos sociais na distribuição dos impactos da degradação ambiental em seu ambiente urbano.

Eszter Wirth, Manuel Alejandro Betancourt-Odio, Macarena Cabeza-García et al.

Background: Many annual deaths in Spain could be avoided if pollution levels were reduced. Every year, several municipalities in the Community of Andalusia, located in southern Spain, exceed the acceptable levels of atmospheric pollution. In this sense, the evolution of primary air pollutants during the March–June 2020 lockdown can be taken as reliable evidence to analyze the effectiveness of potential air quality regulations. Data and Method: Using a multivariate linear regression model, this paper assesses the levels of NO₂, O₃, and PM₁₀ in Andalusia within the 2017–2020 period, relating these representative indices of air quality with lockdown stages during the pandemic and considering control variables such as climatology, weekends, or the intrusion of Saharan dust. To reveal patterns at a local level between geographic zones, a spatial analysis was performed. Results: The results show that the COVID-19 lockdown had a heterogeneous effect on the analyzed pollutants within Andalusia’s geographical regions. In general terms, NO₂ and PM₁₀ concentrations decreased in the main metropolitan areas and the industrial districts of Huelva and the Strait of Gibraltar. At the same time, O₃ levels rose in high-temperature regions of Cordoba and Malaga.

Chang-Guk Sun, Han-Saem Kim, Hyung-Ik Cho

Seismic site effects and topographic effects related to ground motion occur during an earthquake due to site-specific geotechnical or geological characteristics, including the geological or geographical structure and the characteristics of near-surface sub-soil layers. Site-specific site effects due to geological conditions have been confirmed in recent earthquake events. Earthquake-induced damage has mainly occurred at accumulated soft soil layers under basins or along coasts and rivers. An alternative method has recently been proposed for evaluating regional seismic site effects and amplification factors using digital elevation models (DEM). High-quality DEMs at high resolutions may be employed to resolve finer-scale variations in topographic gradients and consequently, correlated site response parameters. Because there are many regions in South Korea lacking borehole datasets, which are insufficient for site classification only using borehole datasets, a DEM-based proxy for seismic zonation can be effective. Thus, in this study, geo-proxy-based site classification was proposed based on empirical correlations with site response parameters and conducted for regional zonation of seismic site effects to identify the amplification of characteristics in the western metropolitan areas of South Korea, depending on the site-specific geo-spatial conditions.

Dominique Harre, Hervé Gazel, François Moriconi-Ebrard

Urbanization is very recent in the nine countries presented in this article (Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Somalia, and Tanzania). Urban growth has been very fast too over the last three decades, and has given form to large urbanized territories in areas historically very densely populated and officially classified as rural. These territories are linked with metropolitan areas (Nairobi, Dar es salam, Bujumbura), secondary cities (Jinja, Bukoba, Mtwara), and conurbations of regional magnitude (Kenya). However, without proper statistical measurement, these new urban territories would remain unintelligible. The figures and conclusions presented here draws on a study conducted by the research program e-Geopolis, which measures urban sprawl at various geographical scales and locates population agglomerations, independently of official data. This original approach makes possible to provide a statistical measure of the “generalized urbanization” in progress around Bujumbura, Kisii, or Kisumu. A careful look at urban morphologies and territorial status is another essential step to better understand territorial dynamics at work. The complex urban forms observed, marked by a triple heterogeneity, (morphological, economic, administrative) suggest that the new urban territories may be strongly fragmented. Many include in their perimeters large commercial agricultural areas as well as large urbanized areas without development, a trend that goes against recent political schemes. These evolutions call for renewed views on the nature of urbanization in East Africa, although the magnitude of in situ urbanization against the role of metropolitan areas in the emergence and expansion of the new urban territories is still difficult to determine.

Krystian Heffner, Małgorzata Twardzik

Intensive spatial processes taking place around metropolitan areas leads to many economic, structural and social changes in their surroundings. The small towns and rural areas located in the outer zone of metropolitan areas are most affected by this functional changes. In the outer zone of a big urban canters appears a lot of new competing possibilities on the labor market and a comprehensive commercial, service and cultural offer to smaller centres. One of the most competitive advantage of the metropolitan zones becomes modern shopping centres being established in the most accessible places, providing a comprehensive shopping-services and even cultural-recreational offer.

W. Pete Welch, Mark E. Miller, H. Gilbert Welch et al.

Mizuki Kawabata

Marianne V. Moore, S. M. Pierce, Hannah Walsh et al.

Henry O. Pollakowski, Traci S. Ray

Karen A. Danielsen, Ph.D., R. Lang, W. Fulton