Urban growth and environmental degradation: The case of Cairo, Egypt

The immense growth of cities, especially in developing countries, is resulting in the urbanization of both poverty and environmental degradation to a greater degree than ever before. This paper examines the processes of growth and degradation in the Greater Cairo Metropolitan Region (GCMR), currently the world’s tenth largest mega-city. It reviews the region’s growth and selected environmental issues as well as impacts of current efforts on managing the region. The assertion of this paper is that current management policies and bodies lack a comprehensive view of urban governance for the region, which does not bode well for the future environmental and economic sustainability of the region.     

Hiding in plain view: Vacancy and prospect in Paris’ Petite Ceinture

Vacant lands present rich areas for inquiry not only into the uses of urban space, but also the experiences, aesthetics and biophysical evolution of cities. These spaces often host socio-ecological formations and functions that are both irregular and unexpected in urban settings, rendered invisible by the disciplining of modern Western aesthetic expectations concerning what is desirable and appropriate in cities. These lands may be vacant, but they are not uninhabited. They enable forms of inhabitation that disrupt the logic of urban development and provide social and ecological prospects otherwise unavailable in cities. The concept of terrain vague is engaged in this paper to probe vacant lands as interstitial spaces that are peripheral to mainstream, dominant urban experiences in Paris, France. The case of the Petite Ceinture railway encircling Paris is explored as an outstanding example of terrain that is rendered physically, socially and ecologically invisible yet provides astounding ecological connectivity and relatively undisturbed habitat for countless species in the midst of one of the world’s cultural capitals. It enables alternate experiences of urbanity for many people, including different types of mobility, novel aesthetic encounters, and social engagement outside urban surveillance infrastructure. As the Petite Ceinture provides unique home for wildlife populations such as mid-size mammals and rare bat colonies, it also hosts undocumented migrant groups, assemblages of youth, urban flaneurs, homeless labourers, artists, and groups conducting prohibited activities. These types of inhabitations are possible because the Petite Ceinture has been fully decommissioned since 1993, unmanaged and left largely to successional processes. This paper investigates terrain vague as a critical dimension of urban sustainability and ends by suggesting key ways that the conceptual and material underpinnings of terrain vague could be channeled through progressive urban planning and design.     

What will the neighbors think? Cultural norms and ecological design

Cultural norms for landscape appearance may affect preferences for and adoption of ecological design in exurban residential landscapes, a rapidly growing land use that covers a larger area than all other urban land uses in America combined. We conducted an image-based web survey of 494 southeast Michigan exurban homeowners to investigate the influence of implicit neighborhood norms as well as broader cultural norms on individual preferences for six alternative front yard designs ranging from conventional yards dominated by mown turf to mature native woodlands and native prairie garden designs. Respondents were randomly assigned to see images of one of three types of nearby neighbors’ yards: all conventional, all ecologically innovative, or a mix. They rated front yard design alternatives in one of these three neighborhood contexts. Both broad cultural norms for conventional front yards and neighborhood norms significantly affected homeowners’ preference for their own yards. However, neighborhood norms most dramatically affected preference: the rank of the most conventional and most ecologically beneficial front yard designs was reversed depending upon the design of nearby neighbors’ yards. We conclude that efforts to introduce ecologically innovative designs to metropolitan residential landscapes should approach change at the neighborhood scale in order to enhance initial success and long term cultural sustainability. We also note that individuals who innovate on their own properties may want to enlist nearby neighbors in similar innovations to create a threshold of cultural sustainability.     

Integrating Ecological,Social and Cultural Dimensions in the Implementation of the Landscape Convention

Implementation of the European Landscape Convention requires new tools that link ecological, social and cultural dimensions in practical planning. Here, we propose connectivity as a conceptual tool to include different dimensions into landscape and spatial planning. We present a short review of the connectivity concept in relation to ecological, social and cultural dimensions and illustrate it by examples from a real landscape planning case.     

中国近期乡建发展概况与类型解析

近年来，我国掀起了新一轮乡建热潮，其参与主体、内容和形式都呈现出极为复杂多元的局面，需要学界客观的分析和认知。论文通过对我国三次乡建发展历程的梳理，从经济、社会、文化、生态等四方面探讨近期乡建兴起的原因，以“问题——目标——实践”模式为导向总结出乡建的四大类型：以经济可持续为目标的产业发展、以社会可持续为目标的社区重构、以文化可持续为目标的文化复兴、以生态可持续为目标的环境保护。并以典型案例评析各种类型化实践的设计理念、实践方法、实施效果与实施限制，以期为我国乡村未来可持续发展提供借鉴。     

Sustaining creativity in the creative archetype: The case of Austin, Texas

Recently, the popular literature on creative industries and the urban creative landscape has been largely dominated by the work of one scholar, Richard Florida. The popularity of Richard Florida’s work has led to a zealous implementation of his creative class thesis by many city officials, policymakers, and urban planners. Recent studies have investigated the impact of creative city implementation in previously working class and industrial cities, but given Florida’s popularity and influence, it is also necessary to evaluate the sustainability of cities touted as creative success stories by Florida and others. This article examines the case of Austin, Texas, seeking to evaluate Florida’s model city in light of recent empirical research. This research suggests that while Austin has witnessed impressive economic prosperity, the “externalities” or unforeseen challenges associated with creative development are equally evident. Further, this research suggests that previously overlooked socio-cultural challenges (e.g. loss of urban cultural character, sense of detachment, over-commercialization) in Austin threaten to potentially undermine the sustainability of this mode of development.     

Heritage Values and Agricultural Landscapes: Towards a New Synthesis

Abstract

The conservation of agricultural heritage is an emerging field that offers opportunities for integrating heritage values into strategies for environmental, economic and social sustainability in rural areas in the US. Even though farmsteads and ranches are iconic representations of rural communities, little attention has been given to the cultural heritage values of agricultural landscapes or in agricultural policy. Climate change, global market drivers and significant demographic shifts threaten agrarian resources. Today, there is an urgent need to address the loss of agricultural land and enhance the sustainability of agricultural systems. This article argues that it is timely to consider heritage as an integral part of developing strategies to adapt agricultural systems and make them more resilient. Some promising recent efforts demonstrate that heritage designations, partnerships and stewardship programmes offer strategic advantages and should be an integral part of a broader set of agricultural reforms, creating a new synthesis.     

Knowledge and interpretation in environmental conflict: Fish farming and eutrophication in the Archipelago Sea, SW Finland

The article deals with the role of knowledge in discursive interpretations of an environmental conflict. The research is embellished through a special case study of the debate on the water eutrophication problem and the fish farming industry in the Finnish Archipelago Sea in southwest (SW) Finland. The main question addressed in the article concerns the competing definitions of the eutrophication problem and its spatial dimensions, and the possible implications these definitions have on the political efforts to solve the problem. My focus lies on the role of knowledge as a resource in the struggle over the definition. Accordingly, I will ask how the actors’ frames and knowledge are connected with their position within the power hierarchy, and their relation with the study area.The results illustrate the dependence of the environmental debate on scientific research, but they also show the lay people’s ambivalent attitude to science. The several gaps, uncertainties and controversies in the knowledge base allow interest groups to select the research results that support their view and challenge other scientific interpretations or to oppose environmental restrictions by referring to uncertainties of knowledge.Tensions are revealed between local and translocal views and several forms of knowledge. Disagreements do not arise, however, between pure, separate forms of knowledge. Particularly the fish farmers’ discursive repertoire holds ingredients provided by traditional knowledge, knowledge based on their own experiences, knowledge produced in co-operation with researchers and popularised science.The results show how the lay persons’ mistrust in scientific knowledge is linked with their critical attitudes towards the motives, interests and values of outside actors. The mistrust implies a strong spatial element, an experienced outside threat to local identity, way of life and traditional user rights of natural resources. Producers and users of scientific research are seen as part of the complex of social and cultural power representing urban recreation interests, ecological fundamentalism and an alienated connection with nature.     

“Rio+10”, sustainability science and Landscape Ecology

The ‘sustainability debate’ has had a profound influence on contemporary Landscape Ecology. This paper explores the implications of the second global summit for the research agendas that developed after the Rio Summit (1992), and argues that although the Declaration from Johannesburg 2002 restates the earlier summit concerns, the messages it sends to the research community are subtly different to those a decade earlier. The growing body of literature, which identifies the need for a new kind of sustainability science, is reviewed, and its relevance to Landscape Ecology is discussed. Although recent commentators have argued for a more transdisciplinary approach to Landscape Ecology that appears to meet the requirements of this new science we still lack ways of taking this forward. The paper concludes by proposing a new paradigm for Landscape Ecology based on the concept of ecosystem goods and services, or natural capital. It is argued that in the decade since the Rio Summit, a key focus of the future research agenda for the discipline should be an exploration of the ‘sustainability choice space’ defined by the interaction of biophysical limits and social and economic values at the landscape-scale. The paper provides a conceptual model (the tongue model) that describes how biophysical and socio-economic constraints can be combined in sustainability planning.     

Exploring farmer's knowledge as a source of information on past and present cultural landscapes: A case study from NW Spain

The primary goal of this research was to explore the potential of farmer's knowledge as a source of information on the past and present cultural landscapes, focusing on the land-use system, the cultural heritage, and the farmer's perception of landscape changes, from the 1950s to the present day. For this purpose, 42 semi-structured interviews were conducted from a random sample of 10% of the villages in an area of the Northern Mountains of Galicia (NW Spain). As shown in farmers’ reports, the main crops in the 1950s were wheat or rye, potatoes or maize (only near the coast) and turnips. Scrubland areas were an essential resource for pasture, litter, temporary crops and charcoal, whereas deciduous forest was mainly used as a source of wood for carpentry, firewood and litter. Agriculture was the main economic activity, whereas crafts and other activities in the fisheries or forestry industry were secondary. Granaries, watermills and stone laundry basins were the most frequent elements of built heritage that was mentioned in the interviews. Farmers were also comprehensively aware of the broad changes that occurred in the landscape. The results indicate that farmer's knowledge is a valuable source of information for documenting past and present land-use practices, local cultural heritage and changes in the landscape, all of which are helpful for the design of landscape-orientated policies. Moreover, observed ancestral cultural practices, such as extensive grazing in scrubland areas, may be promoted as strategies for helping the sustainability of cultural landscapes in the study area and in other areas with similar characteristics.     

The nature of positive

The ‘net-positive’ concept could serve as both a new direction and an aspiration for evolving sustainable design beyond minimizing human damage toward human habitation that is a source of life. This commentary posits that realizing that potential depends on how practitioners define positive. Describing net-positive as ‘buildings that “add value” to ecological systems and generate more than they need to fulfil their own needs’ moves net-positive beyond simply a technical challenge of creating surpluses to one that requires confronting the widely different interpretations of value and value-adding held within the sustainability movement. ‘Green’ building, like the building industry, generally defines and measures a building's value in terms of human benefit. Ecological sustainability defines value in terms of benefits to the systemic capability to generate, sustain and evolve the life of a particular place. Reconciling these different definitions could transform how society conceives of and designs the built environment. Building professionals seeking to translate net-positive into practice could play a leading role in that transformation. Practice will need to embrace ecological thinking to create design, construction and ongoing management processes that stimulate dialogue about what it means for humans to play a value-adding role in the ecological systems where they are constituents.     

Incorporating ecological sustainability into landscape planning

The ecological component is crucial in landscape planning according to the principles of sustainable development. We define “ecologically sustainable landscape” and develop a tool to measure how ecological sustainability is incorporated in landscape plans. This method acknowledges the critical role of spatial scale and pattern to the conservation of biodiversity. The metapopulation concept is used as a spatially explicit ecological theory, appropriate to describe the relation between biodiversity and the pattern of ecosystem patches (“ecosystem network”) in intensively used regions. We propose that ecological sustainability is achieved if quality, area and configuration of the ecosystem network permit target species to persist. A simple decision-making model represents a theoretical framework for a tool comprising two sets of ecological indicators. One set indicates the awareness of actors to consider ecological principles of sustainable planning. The other set indicates their performance to apply these principles quantitatively in designing the ecosystem pattern. The method is applied on a sample of reports on Dutch landscape development plans. A majority of the reports shows awareness of the importance of spatial conditions for achieving planning goals, but perform inadequately on the quantitative indicators. We conclude that the tool could be developed as a guideline and assessment method for the ecological sustainability of landscape plans.     

When Do Plans Matter?

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Plans often sit on the shelf and fail to promote action. This raises the question of how and when plans matter. This is especially important in sustainability planning where local governments are more likely to take actions with short-term benefits that are easy to adopt. How can planners promote more sustainability actions, especially those with longer term benefits? In this study we examine factors influencing local sustainability actions by tracking 651?U.S. local governments’ adoption of 34 sustainability actions from 2010 to 2015. We differentiate places that recently adopted a sustainability plan from those that have had a plan for a longer period and those that have never adopted a sustainability plan. We use difference-in-difference (DID) modeling to assess what effect plans have on the level of sustainability actions. We find a plan may have its greatest effect in motivating actions when it is newly created. Places that adopted a plan between 2010 and 2015 exhibited a significant increase in sustainability actions during those same years. By contrast, places that already had a plan in 2010 showed higher initial levels of sustainability actions but did not show a higher level of growth in the number of actions adopted compared with places without plans. In general, we find local governments with higher levels of sustainability actions articulate social equity goals, devote staff and budget resources to the effort, engage the public, and promote interdepartmental coordination. Local governments under Republican control enact fewer sustainability actions.

Takeaway for practice: Sustainability plans are most effective in spurring local sustainability actions when they are newly created. However, this initiation impact in motivating actions wanes over time. Promoting continued adoption of sustainability actions requires a comprehensive approach with attention to political support, public participation, social equity, interdepartmental coordination, and local capacity.     

Local experiences of urban sustainability: Researching Housing Market Renewal interventions in three English neighbourhoods

Ideas and thinking about sustainability and sustainable development have permeated over the last decades into most disciplines and sectors. The area of urban studies is no exception and has generated an impressive body of literature, which aims to marry ‘sustainability’ and ‘urban development’ by grounding the many interpretations of sustainability in an urban setting. This has taken many forms and inspired a range of initiatives across the world including ‘healthy cities’, ‘urban villages’, ‘millennium communities’ and the ‘mixed communities’ movement. Moreover, urban regeneration has come under considerable scrutiny as one of the core mechanisms for delivering sustainable urban development. At the most basic level, it can be argued that all urban regeneration contributes to a certain extent to sustainable development through the recycling of derelict land and buildings, reducing demand for peripheral development and facilitating the development of more compact cities. Yet, whether urban regeneration bears an effect on urban sustainability is an underresearched area. In addition, little is known about these impacts at local level. This paper aims to extend our understanding in these areas of research. We do so, by taking a closer look at three neighbourhoods in Salford, Newcastle and Merseyside. These neighbourhoods underwent urban regeneration under the Housing Marker Renewal Programme (2003–2011), which aimed to ‘create sustainable urban areas and communities’ in the Midlands and North of England. Approximately 130 residents from the three areas were interviewed and a further 60 regeneration officials and local stakeholders consulted. The paper looks at the impact of urban regeneration on urban sustainability by examining whether interventions under the Housing Market Renewal Programme have helped urban areas and communities to become more sustainable. It also discusses impacts at local level, by probing into some of Housing Market Renewal's grounded ‘sustainability stories’ and looking at how change is perceived by local residents. Furthermore, it re-opens a window into the Housing Market Renewal Programme and documents the three neighbourhoods within the wider context of scale and intervention across the whole programme.     

Urban history and cultural resources in urban regeneration: a case of creative waterfront renewal

In recent decades, the role of culture and history has often become a driving factor in the process of urban regeneration. The focus on culture and history as factors in regional transformation has been particularly extensive in response not only to competitiveness among cities but also to sustainability requirements in the cultural sector. In the same perspective of this approach, culture in its broadest sense assumes a decisive role in constructing a system of interventions where employment and social and sustainable development become the product of the integration of places, people, economies and traditions. Creative cities are currently working on how to improve the interaction between regeneration building, economic development and social renewal in order to achieve more comprehensive development of the city. Existing creative cities may be seen to revolve around the design, promotion and activation of urban areas established due to their particular local characteristics. Such areas become creative clusters as a result of economic and structural innovations, related to the realization of innovator projects achieved with the help of local development strategies based on the economies of excellence, culture and territorial quality. Starting from such premises, this article aims to show the main factors which condition creativity in cities – such as new policies, participation, history, place identity, cultural resources and sustainability – and an emblematic case study of creative regeneration. This concerns the HafenCity district in Hamburg, where the history has assumed an important role in re-constructing the maritime identity and for many choices of urban nature.     

Improving ecological performance of industrialized building systems in Malaysia

For construction stakeholders to fully embrace sustainability, its long-term benefits and associated risks need to be identified through holistic approaches. Consensus among key stakeholders is very important to the improvement of the ecological performance of industrialized building systems (IBS), a building construction method gaining momentum in Malaysia. A questionnaire survey examines the relative significance of 16 potentially important sustainability factors for IBS applications. To present possible solutions, semi-structured interviews solicit views from experienced IBS practitioners, representing the professions involved. Three most critical factors agreed by key stakeholders are material consumption, waste generation and waste disposal. Using SWOT analysis, the positive and negative aspects of these factors are investigated, with action plans formulated for IBS design practitioners. The SWOT analysis based guidelines have the potential to become part of IBS design briefing documents against which sustainability solutions are contemplated, selected and implemented. Existing knowledge on ecological performance issues is extended by considering the unique characteristics of IBS and identifying not only the benefits, but also the potential risks and challenges of pursuing sustainability. This is largely missing in previous research efforts. Findings to date focus on providing much-needed assistance to IBS designers, who are at the forefront of decision-making with a significant level of project influence. Ongoing work will be directed towards other project development phases and consider the inherent linkage between design decisions and subsequent sustainability deliverables in the project life cycle.     

The application of ‘least-cost’ modelling as a functional landscape model

The growing awareness of the adverse effects of habitat fragmentation on natural systems has resulted in a rapidly increasing number of actions to reduce current fragmentation of natural systems as well as a growing demand for tools to predict and evaluate the effect of changes in the landscape on connectivity in the natural world. Recent studies used ‘least-cost’ modelling (available as a toolbox in GIS-systems) to calculate ‘effective distance’, a measure for distance modified with the cost to move between habitat patches based on detailed geographical information on the landscape as well as behavioural aspects of the organisms studied. We applied the method to a virtual landscape and a small scaled agricultural system subject to different scenarios in a land re-allotment project. We discuss the importance of technical aspects and ecological assumption underlying this modelling method. The model is shown to be a flexible tool to model functional connectivity in the study of the relation between landscape and mobility of organisms as well as in scenario building and evaluation in wild life protection projects and applied land management projects. Since ‘effective distance’ has the same units as Euclidean distance (m), this effective distance may be a straightforward way to include landscape and behavioural aspects in other models which include distance as a measure for isolation. We show the importance of the ‘ecological’ quality of the input maps and the choice of relevant landscape features and resistance values.