The difference of ‘being diverse’: City branding and multiculturalism in the ‘Leicester Model’

This city profile on Leicester focuses on the representation of ethnical diversity in city branding. Through a historical approach, the paper discusses how the local authorities have taken advantage of the arrival of different migration flows into the city, in order to redefine its post-industrial identity in terms of multiculturalism, tolerance and inclusivity. In so doing, the paper emphasises the combination of deliberate marketing communicative activities, the provision of services for attracting and retaining foreign businesses and the creation of an open urban milieu where various ethnic groups are free to express and celebrate their own cultures through festivals and events. The paper identifies the alignment between place communication and place ‘offerings’ development as the crucial element underpinning Leicester's model for multicultural cooperation and critically assesses the recent challenges that are being posed to the sustainment of a multicultural city image.     

Muscular strain in ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ building work

In this Finnish study, the causes and frequency of musculoskeletal strain among concrete reinforcement workers and painters on house maintenance are analysed from observations at 30s intervals, from accident report forms and from interviews about unreported minor accidents. Various measures are then suggested to prevent the problems revealed, including careful work planning and site layout, and care over means of access to the work point.     

Numerical simulation of the ‘pull-in’ operation in submarine pipelines

‘Pull-in’ operations consist in the deflection of a pipeline, resting on the seabed, until it is ready to be connected to a subsea oil production structure. This work presents the numerical methods and strategies employed in the development of a computational system for the simulation and analysis of such operations, involving severe geometric nonlinear effects due to large displacements. The following aspects are addressed: representation of the pipeline; anisotropic friction in the soil-pipeline interaction; three-dimensional behaviour, and representation of the chain-buoy assembly in ‘off-bottom’ operations; and the adequate representation of the pull-in cable. The study of the final connection to the subsea structure is also addressed. The quality of the numerical simulation obtained from the application of this computational system is assessed in an illustrative example, where the results are compared with those obtained from an experimental small-scale model test.     

The role of ‘early-phase mining’ in reframing net-positive development

The term ‘net-positive development’ has gained significant recognition by both academics and professionals, especially in architecture. A net-positive development increases or creates economic, social and ecological capital(s) and makes a positive contribution to ecosystem services. Designing how excess resources may be used beyond a site's boundary is a very appealing notion, but difficult to put into practice without the tools and methods to support net-positive development. The effectiveness and potential impact on community design of ‘net-positive development’ is questioned when its evaluation is limited to a quantitative analysis only. A broader definition of net positive is offered that equally places social dimensions alongside ecological health through ‘mining’ for synergies and leverage points in the early stages of a design project. An emphasis is placed on the undervalued first step in the design process of ‘mining: evaluating the dormant, inherent potential’. This can be done through a process of questioning the conventional parameters of a context's predefined limits. A framework is also provided that can prove beneficial at this phase. It is posited that strong mining can provide full-spectrum change where true positive benefits, on multiple scales and for multiple stakeholder interests, are achieved.     

The discourse of ‘Respect for People’ in UK construction

A competency‐based review of professional quantity surveying is important for service excellence and has continuing relevance in the built environment of the 21^st century. A survey of quantity surveyors in professional practice in South Africa has provided a new perspective on the relative importance of competencies required for current and future quantity surveying services, and revealed notable gaps between the important competencies and current proficiency levels among practitioners. The survey was based on a structured questionnaire reflecting 23 defined competencies, which were derived from the literature and from in‐depth interviews with selected practitioners. The results indicated that technically orientated competencies were rated of highest importance for current services, while management orientated competencies were rated of higher importance for future services. The profession was rated as deploying below average proficiency levels in marketing, advanced financial management, leadership and general management, and project management, although these received high current and future importance ratings. The findings suggest that initial and continuing education and training of professional quantity surveyors should emphasize the development of management‐orientated competencies.     

The ‘distinctiveness of cities’ and distinctions in cities: boundaries of belonging in comparative perspective

It is in cities where people are most strongly confronted with diversity in an ‘age of migration’. However, comparisons of local integration contexts usually take ethnic boundaries as given or assume that they are constituted by the nation state. Our analysis of local discourses challenges this methodological nationalism. Departing from the ‘distinctiveness of cities’ approach, we scrutinise how Frankfurt, Dortmund, Birmingham and Glasgow differ in how diversity is discursively constructed. We maintain that the discourses not only reflect different frames in dealing with diversity but also serve as a proxy for debating the self-image of the city.     

Growth and degradation in the Orient’s ‘Las Vegas’: issues of environment in Macau

This paper argues that the rapid growth of gambling‐related tourism and urban construction in Macau has given rise to serious environmental degradation. The major environmental issues include air quality, water supply, solid waste disposal, noise prevention, heritage conservation and environmental management. The author suggests that the government in Macau should refocus this city’s development direction and commit itself to sustainable development. At the policy‐making level, there are such urgent issues as integration of environmental, economic and urban planning with community participation in decision‐making; enhancement of environmental legislation and institutions; implementing vital measures to control of the numbers of visitors; developing a mass transport system; and protecting the city’s cultural heritage.     

The housing careers of younger adults and intergenerational support in Germany’s ‘society of renters’

Abstract

Through narrative interviews with younger adults and their parents, this paper explores how the housing transitions of younger adults, both within the rental sector and into homeownership, are shaped through intergenerational intra-family support in Germany’s society of renters. Our findings highlight the profound qualitative differences between regular transfers for establishing and retaining residential independence in the rental sector and inter vivos gifts for house purchase. Where the former support type is given and taken unconditionally, transfers for house purchase follow a different logic and carry different meanings. Being a necessary condition for property acquisition at young age, they have the power to completely rebalance family relations and undermine younger adults’ autonomy accordingly. In an aggregate perspective, our study further suggests increasing socio-spatial inequalities within the younger generation which run along both class and spatial origin, sharply dividing the housing market opportunities of ‘original Berliners’ and those who have moved to the city from more affluent regions in Germany.     

‘Resilience thinking’ in transport planning

Resilience has been discussed in ecology for over 40 years. While some aspects of resilience have received attention in transport planning, there is no unified definition of resilience in transportation. To define resilience in transportation, I trace back to the origin of resilience in ecology with a view of revealing the essence of resilience thinking and its relevance to transport planning. Based on the fundamental concepts of engineering resilience and ecological resilience, I define ‘comprehensive resilience in transportation’ as the quality that leads to recovery, reliability and sustainability. Observing that previous work in resilience analysis in transportation has focussed on addressing engineering resilience rather than ecological resilience, I conclude that transformability has been generally overlooked and needs to be incorporated in the analysis framework for comprehensive resilience in transportation.     

The birth of ‘land use planning’ in American urban planning

Although the concept of ‘land use planning’ is now firmly enmeshed in American urban planning, its meaning still remains vague. This paper aims to clarify the meaning by examining the historical development of land use planning in the USA. At the beginning of the twentieth century, city planners viewed a city as an organic unit of public facilities. While city planning thereafter provided potential elements of land use planning, such as zoning, zoning surveys and land use classification systems, the idea of land use planning itself was actually derived from rural county planning and was initially utilized in urban county planning as a guide for zoning in the 1930s. After bringing about a change in the way cities were viewed, that is, as a pattern of land use and population density, land use planning was further employed as a guide for urban redevelopment policies in the 1940s, and finally reaching full integration into city planning in the 1950s and 1960s.     

‘Orthodox’ and ‘alternative’ explanations for the reduction of urban violence in Medellín,Colombia

In 2016, 43 of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world were located in Latin America. In reducing levels of urban violence and preventing future outbreaks, approaches developed in Western Europe and North America are the most influential and have been subjected to considerable testing in high-income urban environments.

This article focuses on Medellín, Colombia. By drawing from qualitative data collected in Medellín, the article scrutinises claims that the social urbanism policies caused the significant reduction in homicides. An alternative explanation for the reduction in homicides is then presented, focusing on the methods of the perpetrators of violence.     

Building a Golden Grove ‘community’: a study of suburban production processes in South Australia, 1970s–1980s

Ideals of community have been associated with the practice of planning for over a century. Proponents of the Golden Grove Development considered particular ideals of community to be fundamental to the financial and social success of the new suburban development. This paper will analyse the early planning processes that underpinned the production of community ideals and argue that these planning processes took place at the transition between welfarism and neo‐liberalism. This study will offer provocative glimpses into late twentieth century suburban planning practices; practices that establish the Golden Grove Development as a model of late twentieth century suburban production processes.     

The ‘Place’ of Cosmopolitan Architecture

The paper takes as its point of departure the necessity to open a space between the international and the national. That space will be as much political as will be one that allows for a certain architecture. For the sake of argumentation that space has been identified as the cosmopolitan. What characterises the cosmopolitan is the possibility that it is the form of modernity once the modem has been freed from the oscillation between the national and the international. Once modernity is introduced then the question to be addressed is not what is modern architecture but what is the architecture of modernity. Part of the argument developed here is that a beginning can be made once it is understood that modernity has to eschew the symbol. And yet, the symbols that proliferate are either national or international. Consequently, this gives rise to a complex interplay between the cosmopolitan, modernity and the possibility of an architecture that is non-symbolic. The question of how to think this complex set of relations is the project undertaken by the paper.     

Reducing the use of resources in medium-sized Swedish construction enterprises: production managers’ views

What construction firms do—and do not do—to reduce the use of resources in construction projects is explored by adopting production managers’ views of their firms’ onsite activities. A literature review and empirical data are combined; 15 production managers have been asked how they perceived their company’s compliance with 31 recommendations to reduce the use of resources. The managers perceived their firms to primarily focus on identifying their customers’ real needs, stimulating employees to undertake further education, and striving for long-term customer–supplier relationships. In contrast, they perceived that less attention was directed to making use of all of the week’s hours, to supporting their main suppliers in their development, and planning feedback and training after project completion. The use of resources is examined by focusing on the perceived low priority given to gathering information and knowledge, as well as to reducing time and the need for long-term relationships with customers in contrast to short-term relationships with suppliers. The managers adopted a project-specific approach mainly to the use of material resources. A more holistic view of resources could enable the development of novel solutions in construction.     

Where is the ‘Social’ in Constructions of ‘Liveability’? Exploring Community,Social Interaction and Social Cohesion in Changing Urban Environments

Ongoing changes in the urban environment have renewed interest in the transformation of cities and suburbs as liveable places. This article examines the limitations inherent in a functional (objective) notion of liveability that commonly underpins government policy directions. Through an examination of key debates in the literature we consider how the delivery of the social (subjective) dimension of liveability, linked to community, social interaction and social cohesion, poses unique challenges for policy makers, urban planners and developers. We argue for a deeper understanding of the social constructs of liveability that acknowledges the complexity of changing urban environments in contemporary society.     

Organisation, ‘anchoring’ of knowledge,and innovative activity in construction

The construction industry is characterised by the widespread use of project organisation. It has been suggested that the relatively low level of innovative activity in the industry can be explained by the temporary nature of firm boundary‐crossing projects. Survey data from the Danish construction industry is used to investigate the importance of learning and ‘anchoring’ of project‐specific knowledge at the firm level for participation in innovative activities. The data cover both the overall Danish construction industry and a specific region, North Jutland, which has a relatively high specialisation of construction workers. Latent class and regression analyses reveal that firms that make extensive use of partnering, together with internal product and process evaluation and knowledge diffusion (labelled ‘knowledge‐anchoring mechanisms’), are more likely to participate in innovative activities than firms which make less use of these mechanisms. This indicates that construction firms are able to compensate for the problems that temporary interorganisational projects may cause in relation to continuous learning at the firm level.     

‘Super-Natural’: Parametricism in Product Design

As a stylistic movement, Parametricism has the scope to move beyond the limits of architecture, penetrating adjacent disciplines. Renowned industrial designer Ross Lovegrove , known as ‘Captain Organic’ for his nature-inspired designs, acknowledges the potential of ‘new codes of creation’ being incubated in architecture schools for product design, accelerating innovation across materials, structures and manufacturing technologies.     

Running hot and cold in the urban home-ownership market: The experience of Japan’s major cities

Urban home-ownership in Japan was destabilised when the bubble economy collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s. This paper looks beyond the social and economic changes in Japanese housing in the post-bubble recession to focus on the ups and downs in current home-ownership markets in Japans major cities. Since the mid-1990s, social fragmentation has created a novel environment for urban home-ownership. The combination of a prolonged recession and a policy to promote housing construction and urban redevelopment has split urban space into hot spots, where the housing market is increasingly active, and cold spots, where the market is persistently inactive.