Green Cities and “IT839”: A New Paradigm for Economic Growth in South Korea

The Korean government, like many in Asia, is actively building green cities from scratch—the most famous being Sejong, Songdo, and Cheongna. All these are considered models of green cities and are characterized by similar networked smart technological systems. This research builds on recent scholarly discourse by Anthony Townsend on smart technologies and urban planning, and Sofia T. Shwayri and Simon Joss on the “ubiquitous-eco-city” phenomena in Korea. In particular, it aims to extend Shwayri's hypothesis that the model is developed for export by uncovering the goals of the green city model actors. By tracing the national government's economic growth ICT strategy—“IT839”—and its key industry stakeholders, KT Telecommunications, this paper illuminates how Korea's green city model is being driven by an agenda of horizontal technology transfer in which the government has aimed to extend its traditional markets, and create a new paradigm for economic growth.     

A Preliminary Research on the City Planning of “Yin”,Capital of the Shang Dynasty

“Yin”was the capital of Shang Dynasty.On the basis of archaeological findings,theauthor explored the planning and layout,distributions of city functions,structural patternsand so on of this capital of the China's slave society 3,000 years ago from the viewpoint ofcity planning.Through analysing the detailed layout of the imperial palaces,residentialareas,handicraft workshops and imperial tombs of the ancient capital city from the thensocial and economic background,the author believes that the city planning concept of theancient“Yin”township has far-reaching influence on the city planning of different dynas-ties in Chinese history.     

The “Bigger Picture”: How the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the 2014 World Design Capital Events Conditioned Cape Town’s Urban Transformation

This paper explores how the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the 2014 World Design Capital events feed into the disjunctive experience of time in Cape Town. It demonstrates, via a timeline, how a set of contemporary global discourses around soccer and design comes to rest in this very particular local context, as well as the effects that these discourses have. I argue that these discourses transform Cape Town into a global city oriented towards the future. I also argue, though, that they contribute to a state of amnesia. I address how this amnesia reinforces the imprint of colonial modernity on the landscape of the Cape, with its associated historical and contemporary violence, and its effect on cultural production, identities and agency.     

IBA's “Models for a City”: Housing and the Image of Cold-War Berlin

The design competition mounted by the International Building Exposition promised to break new ground in the union of housing and architecture, but the city housing bureaucracy retained control over the interior layouts. The new thinking about housing suggested by the facade manipulations, then, was merely a shell over standardized apartment units. At the same time, the less-publicized urban renewal section of IBA rehabilitated thousands of nineteenth-century buildings with tenant participation, producing occasional new forms of communal dwelling that were rarely expressed on the exterior. Alongside the design of the individual buildings raged a debate about the form of the city. A return to the traditional fabric was defended by IBA leadership as a critical response to modern urban renewal, but it was criticized in turn by architects who saw in it the denial of Berlin's history of fragmentation and destruction. The IBA competition recounts the role of cultural production in Berlin's struggle for identity during the Cold War rather than the role of architecture in forging new directions for housing.     

Planning for Countering Climate Change: Lessons from the Recent Plan of New York City — PlaNYC 2030

Despite a growth in the number of cities currently planning with an eye toward countering climate change and its effects, few actually promote a comprehensive planning approach aiming at countering climate change impacts. The aim of this paper is to assess and to gain insight from the emerging approach to planning that aims at countering climate change. This paper analyses and draws insight from the recent plan of New York City (NYC), PlaNYC 2030, through a thorough examination and analysis of the major components of the plan. This paper concludes that planning has a strong role to play in countering the impacts of climate change at the city level. Apparently, climate change and its resulting uncertainties challenge the concepts, procedures, and scope of conventional approaches to planning, and create a need to rethink and revise current planning methods. PlaNYC, an economic development and infrastructure-oriented plan, has deficient and inadequate adaptation measures. Therefore, it failed in its contribution to protect NYC and its communities in facing Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. Since the plan did not have adequate public participation, PlaNYC failed in understanding the urban-community vulnerability map of NYC and in addressing the critical needs of various communities in facing Sandy. Eventually, planners should take on a leadership role and assume more control in fighting climate change on the city level. Planning has the power to protect cities and save lives of people.     

“We Are Good at Surviving”: Street Hustling in Addis Ababa's Inner City

Recent studies of the informal economy have tried to understand how the politics of informal actors and their attempts at organizing themselves have created new collective platforms for social practice and social action in the African city (Lindell Africa's informal workers. Collective agency, alliances and transnational organizing in urban Africa (pp. 1?C33) 2010; Meagher African Studies Review 54(2):47?C72, 2011). These studies have suggested that the informal is not only the domain of the poor and their form of solidarity but also a terrain where new powerful actors in and outside the city might emerge and where power dynamics and forms of differentiation are at work. With a similar theoretical concern, this paper focuses on how engagement with the ??street economy?? among men between their mid-20s and mid-30s in Addis Ababa's inner city reveals broader experiences of exclusion and marginalization.     

Not Just “A Roof over Your Head”: The Meaning of Healthy Housing for People Living with HIV

The literature has identified housing as a fundamental unmet need for people living with HIV; yet there has been little qualitative evidence exploring housing and HIV, particularly from a Canadian context. This paper focuses on our qualitative analyses of the housing experiences of 48 HIV-positive people living in Ontario. Findings from our interviews illustrate healthy housing as a dynamic interconnection between health, housing and other social factors that are influential to the health and well-being of people with HIV. Four salient themes have emerged from our qualitative findings: the interplay between healthy housing and economic security; the relationship between HIV, health and housing precariousness; the interconnection between housing, HIV, safety, stigma, social isolation and social exclusion; and the meaning of healthy housing for people living with HIV. These findings re-emphasize the importance of housing policies that consider housing as more than just a roof over one’s head, but also as something that supports the physical, mental, emotional and social well-being of people living with HIV.     

“Crisylida Capital”: Hatching Informal Township Property Markets to Benefit Low-Income Residents in Johannesburg, South Africa

Housing for the world??s poor and eliminating housing poverty are a major challenge particularly with the huge housing deficits in many developing countries. Slums and informal settlements are proliferating around the world as the gap between affordable housing and the individuals living in the informal economy widens. Within the current housing shortage, slum properties are often viewed as having no inherent capital value. Yet, within the informal housing developments, there is an informal property market that sees property traded and rented. This existing property market is unregulated and not transparent. This has placed a restriction on the nature of this property market and creates a new form of capital, that of ??crisylida capital????this is capital in a cocoon state; it functions for its purpose but can neither be used as collateral nor is recognised in formal institutions. Looking at township property in Johannesburg, South Africa, informal transactions in the property market can be utilised to facilitate the creation of a property ladder that starts at informal slum and ends in formally developed property. This will move the understanding of slum property as simply a form of shelter for the urban poor to a step for housing poverty eradication.     

“It’s Just a Matter of Adjustment”: Residents’ Perceptions and the Potential for Low-impact Home Practices

In addition to material, spatial and thermal standards and norms that influence the resource intensity of home environments, a key indicator of the environmental impact related to housing is found in residents’ ways of life. Of interest to the study presented in this paper is how residents’ perceptions of home and living standards relate to opinions on environmental issues and the reduction of resource use, exploring the potential and willingness to engage in low-impact ways of living. Empirical material from a questionnaire (n = 156) and interview study (n = 22) with residents in a tenant-owned housing association in Sweden provides insights into conventions and perceptions surrounding practices primarily linked to voluntary simplicity, living smaller as well as sharing spaces and resources. The study emphasizes the need for understanding residents’ perspectives and the implications this might have for targeting the resource intensity of homes in future development and policy.     

Possibilities and limits of brand repositioning for a second-ranked city: The case of Brisbane,Australia's “New World City”, 1979–2013

This article examines the role of city brand repositioning in the economic and sociological transformation of a second-ranked city, developing a conceptual framework that identifies the possibilities and limits of city brand repositioning to enhance a city's global status and reputation. Brisbane, a second-ranked Australian city, is selected to study the influence of city brand repositioning on the process of urban transformation over a 34 year period from 1979 to 2013. The findings of this historical analysis highlight the efficacy of targeted rebranding campaigns and incentives for different market segments (i.e. tourism, investment, education). In particular, positive demographic and economic outcomes for the city were associated with real and psychological repositioning of the city brand. These repositioning strategies communicated substantive changes in the city's demographic and industrial structure, underpinned by multi-level government policies and programmes to cultivate a few globally connected clusters where the city could be competitive – tertiary education and professional, scientific and technical services – both within Australia and globally.