Restorative wildscapes at work: an investigation of the wellbeing benefits of greenspace at urban fringe business sites using ‘go-along’ interviews

Abstract

The potential well-being benefits associated with the use of privately owned greenspaces in working environments have received little research attention. Given the growing evidence on the restorative benefits of urban greenspace, and the fact that many people spend most of their daily hours at the workplace, the question of whether physical access to green environments from workplaces can promote well-being is a pertinent one. Person–environment relationships in peri-urban business sites were investigated in a series of semi-structured ‘go-along’ interviews with employees at Scottish science parks. Workers described a range of well-being benefits from outdoor breaks and associated these with qualities of the environment. Semi-natural and informally landscaped areas were most strongly associated with restoration during the working day. The implications of the findings for the planning and design of business sites at the urban fringe are explored.     

Ambivalent landscapes—wilderness in the urban interstices

This paper explores the origins and development of ambivalent responses to particular contemporary urban landscapes in historical ideas about human relationships with nature and wilderness, and suggests that post-modern wilderness may be found in the urban interstices: in woodland, abandoned allotments, river corridors, derelict or brownfield sites and especially areas in which the spontaneous growth of vegetation through natural succession suggests that nature is in control. We propose that these interstitial wilderness landscapes have numerous important functions as well as being rich repositories of meaning with implications both for theorizing nature–human relationships and for urban landscape planning and design.     

“Glocalising” urban landscapes: Athens and the 2004 olympics

This paper deals with transformations of urban landscape in the era of globalization. First, it attempts to describe and understand how particular aspects of urban morphology, such as built heritage and innovative design of space, have become the competitive edge in terms of landscape. Second, it develops the argument that on the basis of their great potential for (a) promoting economic growth and (b) enhancing place identity of cities, both built heritage and innovative design of space appear to be expansively used as major components of contemporary strategic plans of cities for the transformation and improvement of urban landscape. Combining and promoting built heritage and innovative design of space as two central themes in urban landscape transformations generates, for the 21st century city, a new landscape collage dominated by two extremes: (a) that of tradition with rather local spatial references and (b) that of innovation having more universal or global spatial references. Thus, under the forces of globalization, the new emerging urban landscapes may be termed as “glocalised” ones. As a case study, Athens and the landscape transformations for Olympic Games 2004 are analysed.     

Residential mobility in China: home ownership among rural–urban migrants after reform of the hukou registration system

This paper analyzes the housing tenure of China’s rural–urban migrants in eight destination municipalities in Jiangsu province after the reform of the urban registration system (called hukou in Chinese). The objective is to distill links between home ownership and formal residency status. Using binary logistic models, the paper explores the effects of demographics and institutional factors on home ownership. The analysis is based on the data from a survey conducted in 2009 in eight municipalities, representing the responses to the institutional reforms carried out from the 2000s on. The prevalence of home ownership proves to be affected by age, gender, educational level, household size, personal income, participation in an urban insurance scheme, and a Jiangsu hukou status. However, an inter-municipality comparison reveals divergent effects of a Jiangsu hukou. Registration plays a significant role in relatively more-developed municipalities, where the entitlements are higher but so is the threshold to obtain them. In contrast, its role is not significant in less-developed municipalities, where access to civil amenities is more readily granted.     

Is financial development narrowing the urban–rural income gap? A cross-regional study of China

This paper investigates the causal relationship between financial development and the urban–rural income gap in China. Using a bootstrap Granger panel causality analysis, the result indicates that financial development influences urban–rural income gap mainly in Eastern China. The high level of financial development in this region enables rural areas to increase its income. Our results also confirm the existence of the financial Kuznets curve in Eastern China where urban–rural income gap would be first increased and afterwards decreased by financial development. The financial development itself is not dependent on urban–rural income gap as it largely depends on government policies and economic growth.     

Living condition among China’s rural–urban migrants: recent dynamics and the inland–coastal differential

Using data from the Rural–Urban Migration in China (RUMiC) survey, this paper evaluates the very recent dynamics of living condition among China’s rural–urban migrants during 2008–2014, scrutinizing in particular the differential between the inland region and the coastal region. Along with their improved economic conditions, housing conditions of migrants have in general improved, although compared to urban locals their disadvantages persist over time. The improvement is especially fast among those migrants residing in the inland region. Multivariate regression results indicate that education, income, place of origin and family composition are important determinants of migrants’ housing conditions. Finally, decomposition analysis suggests that even after controlling for those observable factors, there is still a large inland–coastal differential. Over time, China’s rural–urban migrants are becoming more stable and settled in host cities. The temporary nature of China’s migrants, claimed in many previous studies, might be changing. Updated and regional-specific migrant policies are needed.     

The making and remaking of Hackney Wick, 1870–2014: from urban edgeland to Olympic fringe†

This paper is concerned with issues of urban change in areas of London that have become the focus of regeneration strategies predicated on accommodating growth and development within existing city boundaries. Its focus is in the Lower Lea Valley in East London, which developed in the nineteenth century in the context of its peripheral location with respect to central London and which continues to lie at the seam between urban authorities. Today, this whole area is subject to regeneration plans based on addressing the physical and social manifestations of this transforming peripherality – including environmental impacts of industrialization, post-industrial piecemeal development, spatial disconnection, and long-standing patterns of social deprivation – by creating a framework geared towards attracting new investment, population and employment and, in the process, addressing the impediments to change that are seen to have been posed by fractured local policy. Taking one small part of this larger area, Hackney Wick, which is beside the 2012 London Olympic site in the London Borough of Hackney, the paper turns to planning history to explore its development from the nineteenth century in relation to urban boundaries. It uses this exploration as the basis for reflecting on the significance of contemporary boundary adjustments and plans predicated on facilitating the creation of local centrality for the remaking of an urban ‘edgeland’.     

Regional cost-of-living differentials,rural–urban migration,and the contribution to economic growth

Using a multi-region, multi-sector dynamic model of an economy with rural–urban migration fit to Turkish data, this paper explores the evolution of each region's output and factor allocation as well as inter-regional disparities that emerge with migration. Migration or residence decision of households is endogenous with respect to regional cost-of-living differentials. Results show that migration slows down and dampens the shift of labour from urban manufacturing to services, despite the increase in demand for urban services. It is also established that rural–urban migration contributes positively to growth while the reallocation of labour within each region proves to be unfavourable.     

Has highway construction narrowed the urban–rural income gap? Evidence from Chinese cities

Using 2003–2016 panel data of 278 prefecture-level Chinese cities, we analysed the relationship between highway construction, resource flow, and urban–rural income gap using multiple spatial econometric models. Overall highway construction has narrowed the urban–rural income gap owing to better population mobility and goods flow. However, while goods flow has narrowed the gap, population mobility has aggravated it. A regional difference in the impact of highway construction also exists, that is, the effect is negative in central and western cities, but positive for eastern cities. Moreover, China's “4 trillion” fiscal and currency stimulus plan has strengthened highway construction in narrowing the income gap.     

Social networks of rural–urban migrants after residential relocation: evidence from Yangzhou,a medium-sized Chinese city

This paper analyses the effects of residential relocation on China’s rural–urban migrants’ social networks in light of evidence from Yangzhou, Jiangsu province. Our study contrasts voluntary moves with forced moves driven by demolition-led redevelopment of urban villages. Based on data from a survey conducted between 2012 and 2013, the regression analysis shows that voluntarily relocated migrants are more likely than forced movers to use phone/computer to contact their former neighbours, and communication technology allows them to maintain the frequency of their contact. Furthermore, when moving to a gated neighbourhood, voluntary movers are more likely than forced movers to participate in public activities, to have more contact with new neighbours and thereby to get more help from the residents’ committee and new neighbours. The results suggest that forced moves have negative effects on migrants’ social networks in the neighbourhood and that the demolition-led redevelopment programmes do not promote the migrants’ integration in the city.     

Futurescapes of urban regeneration: ten years of design for the unfolding urban legacy of London’s Olympic Games, 2008–2018

ABSTRACT

Much of the literature on the urban legacy of the 2012 Olympics Games emerging in recent years has emphasized the form that development has taken and the ways in which this aligns (or not) with specific promises made in terms of regeneration before the Games. Though plenty of discussion of planning procedure has occurred in this context, less emphasis has been placed on how the process, rather than the products, of urban change has been envisioned through legacy planning and urban design, and the significance of this for regeneration. Given that London’s much-heralded ‘regeneration legacy’ was, from the early days of the Olympic bid, portrayed as a long-term process aimed at addressing historical issues of socio-economic disparity in East London, and that planning and urban design would play key roles in anticipating it, this contribution to the literature is timely. The paper focuses on the period from 2008 to 2018, beginning with the launch of the what was called the Legacy Masterplan Framework. Drawing on empirical analysis of documents describing the main stages of legacy planning and design between these years, it then examines how regeneration as a ‘futurescape’ encompassing numerous aspects of timing and temporality has been anticipated, planned and evolved.     

Reprint of “An ‘unceasing war’ on land development on the urban fringe of Beijing: A case study of gated informal housing communities”

The existing literature about informal development in China's cities is dominated by studies of conventional informal housing in urban villages, while a new type of informal housing, gated informal housing communities, has rarely been studied. The paper aims to contribute to the existing literature by discussing why and how these gated informal housing communities were developed, looking at the case of Beijing. The results of the analysis show that institutional discrimination against rural areas with respect to land use rights, revenue redistribution, policymaking procedures and the hukou-related social welfare system the major drivers of development of informal communities. In particular, informal development is influenced by the ways land value is captured by, compensated for and allocated to the state government rather than rural villagers in the process of its transfer from rural to urban land. For future policy, more institutional innovation or reform is imperative in order to adequately deal with the emergence of gated informal housing communities. Institutionally inclusive land and housing policies, rather than intense top-down control, are needed in China.     

Dutch urban renewal, transformation of the policy discourse 1960–2000

Since the sixties of the twentieth century, thepolicy of the Dutch government on urban renewalhas been subject to three approaches, each onedifferent from the others. Up until thebeginning of the seventies, the accent was onthe expansion of the function of the largercities as economic centers. The expansion ofthe inner city for that purpose proceeded atthe expense of the residential function of thebuilt-up area. Later, the main goal was justthe opposite; attention was turned to thequantitative and qualitative reinforcement ofthe urban residential function of the citycenter and its surrounding urban residentialneighborhoods. Under that approach, the accentwas placed on improving the housing conditionsof the `sitting' residents. Accordingly, theconstruction program consisted for the mostpart of social housing that was extrainexpensive. In the course of the nineties,this so-called classic urban renewal approachwas displaced by urban revitalization. The newapproach placed the accent on strengthening thecompetitive position of cities as locations forpromising economic sectors and households withhigher incomes. This article attempts to characterize these`shifts' in policy on the grounds of a methodderived from discourse theory, which is brieflyexplained in the second section. The thirdsection typifies the policy philosophy of eachof the approaches and attempts to characterizethe changes in the policy discourse in relationto the continually changing combinations ofsocietal events and situations that, from theperspective of the policy sector, were eithernot foreseen or difficult to influence.Looking at the way policy has developed over alonger period, it seems to be less of arational learning process than a`merry-go-round' of fixed themes, visions, andsolutions that jostle for priority and keepcoming back only to disappear again. Furthermore, the logical consistency of apolicy philosophy – for instance, betweennormative and causal assumptions and measures proves to be more the exception than therule.     

Does spatial configuration matter? Understanding the effects of land cover pattern on land surface temperature in urban landscapes

The effects of land cover composition on land surface temperature (LST) have been extensively documented. Few studies, however, have examined the effects of land cover configuration. This paper investigates the effects of both the composition and configuration of land cover features on LST in Baltimore, MD, USA, using correlation analyses and multiple linear regressions. Landsat ETM + image data were used to estimate LST. The composition and configuration of land cover features were measured by a series of landscape metrics, which were calculated based on a high-resolution land cover map with an overall accuracy of 92.3%. We found that the composition of land cover features is more important in determining LST than their configuration. The land cover feature that most significantly affects the magnitude of LST is the percent cover of buildings. In contrast, percent cover of woody vegetation is the most important factor mitigating UHI effects. However, the configuration of land cover features also matters. Holding composition constant, LST can be significantly increased or decreased by different spatial arrangements of land cover features. These results suggest that the impact of urbanization on UHI can be mitigated not only by balancing the relative amounts of various land cover features, but also by optimizing their spatial configuration. This research expands our scientific understanding of the effects of land cover pattern on UHI by explicitly quantifying the effects of configuration. In addition, it may provide important insights for urban planners and natural resources managers on mitigating the impact of urban development on UHI.     

Can urban sprawl lead to urban people governing rural areas? Evidence from the Dywity Commune,Poland

Currently, new suburban settlements are often being localized in rural areas. As a result of this, rural areas have been taking on various urban functions, especially residential ones. Intense migration has been observed, especially in rural areas neighboring large cities. The urban population has been settling in the most attractive residential localizations, and thus creating new housing developments with a high population density, characterized by urban type of construction. Such a process, both favorable and inevitable, leads to other effects, including changes among the local authorities and thus, local policy. The main purpose of this article was to answer the question of whether new urban functions in rural areas resulting from urban sprawl can lead to urban people governing rural areas? If the answer is positive, what other consequences may this bring? The aim was accomplished through the careful examination of a selected area of Poland. The particular value of this study is that its structure and suggested scenarios of possible effects can help local authorities governing areas neighboring cities create suitable spatial plans that include residential areas.     

Towards Achieving Resilience at the Rural–Urban Fringe: the Case of Jamestown,South Africa

The “rural–urban fringe” is under assault worldwide, as cities expand in seemingly unstoppable growth, commonly known as “urban sprawl.” As cities grow, this “transition zone” becomes a contested area as various actors fight for space, with varying opinions on land use. This paper describes the decision-making dynamics governing land use in Jamestown, located in the rural–urban fringe, in Stellenbosch Municipality, South Africa. A fundamental lesson that emerged out of the research is that local outcomes are highly vulnerable to economic and political realities that may exist far from the area itself, resulting in clear winners, and “losers,” often depending on the ideological perspective of the individuals involved. The paper aims to draw out several lessons for planners and advocates of sustainable urban design: given the complex pressures governing land use in present day South Africa, what is there to be learned from this particular case in terms of “best practice” and best/better ways forward?