Visually Imagining Place: Museum Visitors,Instagram, and the City

ABSTRACT

While the city as a place has been examined to a certain extent through the lens of social media platforms such as Instagram, the connection between museum visitors posting to Instagram and placemaking is an under-explored area. Yet as more of the world’s population now lives in cities and placemaking has become an urgent part of city development, new knowledge is needed to understand how these components contribute to a sense of place. Drawing on data from two case studies, this article argues that museum visitor posts to Instagram are creative and productive acts that generate a dynamic evolving ecology of the city as place.     

State and Municipal Climate Change Plans: The First Generation

Problem: Global warming has emerged as one of the new century's top planning challenges. But it is far from clear how state and local governments in the United States can best address climate change through planning.

Purpose: As of 2008, 29 states had prepared some sort of climate change plan, and more than 170 local governments had joined the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign that requires that a plan be developed. This article analyzes this first generation of climate change plans and seeks to assess the goals being set, the measures included or left out, issues surrounding implementation, and the basic strengths and weaknesses of state and local climate change planning to date.

Methods: I conducted this research by analyzing planning documents as well as interviewing state and local officials by telephone. I analyzed the plans of three types of governments: all states with planning documents on climate change; cities with populations of over 500,000 that are members of the CCP campaign; and selected smaller cities that are CCP members.

Results and conclusions: Most plans set emissions-reduction goals, establish emission inventories, green public sector operations, and recommend a range of other measures. Many recent plans have been developed through extensive stakeholder processes and present very detailed lists of recommendations with quantified emissions benefits. But emissions-reduction goals vary widely, many proposed actions are voluntary, few resources have been allocated, and implementation of most measures has not yet taken place. Most plans do not address adaptation to a changing climate. Officials see rapidly growing public awareness of the issue and general support for climate change planning, but reluctance to change personal behavior.

Takeaway for practice: Future climate change planning should (a) set goals that can adequately address the problem; (b) establish long-term planning frameworks in which progress toward these goals can be monitored on a regular basis and actions revised as needed; (c) include the full range of measures needed to reduce and adapt to climate change; (d) ensure implementation of recommended actions through commitment of resources, revised regulation, incentives for reducing emissions, and other means; and (e) develop strategies to deepen public awareness of the need for fundamental changes in behavior, for example regarding motor vehicle use.

Research support: This research was supported by the University of California, Davis Department of Environmental Design.     

Community renewal and large public housing estates

Abstract

The extent of social disadvantage in local neighbourhoods has come to the fore in recent years, partly as a result of the problems that State Housing Authorities have faced in managing the concentrations of socially marginalised populations on larger public housing estates. However, a wider understanding of the processes at play in these neighbourhoods is needed to inform policy development. We consider the evolution of local renewal policy in New South Wales at the present time and suggest potential policy options for the future.     

Landscape strategy making and landscape characterisation—experiences from Danish experimental planning processes

Abstract

Landscape strategy making including landscape characterisation is the subject of this article. Traditional approaches to landscape planning is briefly and critically discussed and a more place based and strategic approach to rural landscape planning is argued for. Landscape characterisation and community involvement is discussed in relation to three dimensions: the landscape as a common good; landscape rights; and the landscape as a development factor. A landscape strategy making approach based partly on Patsy Healy’s work on collaborative planning and spatial strategy making is outlined, and experiences from two Danish case studies are presented. It is concluded that the landscape strategy making approach including highly specific landscape characterisations works and represents a promising way forward for more integrative and participatory approaches to landscape planning and policy, although more work on assessing the landscape condition is needed.     

Mobile Design as Neighborhood Acupuncture: Activating the Storytelling Networks of South Los Angeles

Abstract

A delicate touch is required to empower neighborhoods using civic media. Funding is persistently scarce. Especially in marginalized neighborhoods, blunt designs can be counterproductive and even entrench complex problems. New metaphors may be needed to guide design and empower local neighborhoods. Urban acupuncture is used as the basis for this study, emphasizing a light-touch strategy that has shown success in Brazil with urban transit, and more recently in Europe with urban design. We specifically propose “neighborhood acupuncture” to address the local level, tapping the sociology of place-based communication. To investigate the implications for systematic design, a case study is probed in South Los Angeles using mobile media for community mapping. Using qualitative methods, three tactics were investigated for the potential to “poke” the network into action, including one to bridge diverse storytelling networks. Each tactic ultimately seeks to build the capacity for collective action around neighborhood issues. Acupuncture is broadly argued to sustain two design shifts: first to help approach neighborhoods as ecosystems, and second, to design for circulation rather than any single technology platform.     

A detailed review on solar desalination techniques

ABSTRACT

World is growing very fast as the population and technological development increased every day. Shortage of water becomes a significant obstacle in the development process of many parts of the world due to global warming and salinity of natural potable resource lead us to find out smart techniques of desalination of saline and brackish water. Many research works are successful in establish large desalination plant. But decidedly fewer attempts are made for the arid region where low cost; maintenance free and low operating cost techniques are needed. Fast developing and under developing country are facing problems for providing pure drinking water to all the peoples. In this review, one attempt is made to study different solar desalination techniques and find out the solution by combinations of varying desalination techniques for the small and arid region.     

Effect of compression ratio on the performance of CI engine fuelled with freshwater algae biodiesel

ABSTRACT

Biodiesel is proved to be a better substitute of conventional diesel. Economically good biosource is a needed one. In this study, freshwater algae (micro algae) are used for producing the biodiesel. The fuel properties of the biodiesel sample were tested and found within the limits. The B10 and B20 biodiesel blends with diesel are tested in a single cylinder CI engine. The blends show a better performance in CI engine and the values are closer to the conventional diesel. The important engine parameter compression ratio is also made to vary. At the three compression ratios, the biodiesel’s performance trend is quite comparable with diesel.     

Religious expression in senegalese weavers' work

ABSTRACT

Using ethnographic interviews with weavers in Thiès, Senegal, this article argues that artists make processes of weaving practices of their faith. Weavers discursively associate their work with their personal faith and with socially circulated tenets of Sufism and indigenous systems of belief. I focus on a tacitly expressed analogy that weavers make between their work and faith: the divinely inspired knowledge needed for personal spiritual transformation, and the technical knowledge needed for artistic innovation. Because weavers adapt their work to new techniques and styles, the ways they express their beliefs through their work also varies and develops. I use pragmatics, or the relationship between beliefs and the ways people implement them, as a framework to explore how weavers express their faith through techniques and imagery.     

Optimisation of intake parameters for diesel engine fuelled with diesel-tamarind seed methyl ester biodiesel blend by Taguchi method

ABSTRACT

The present experimental work is focused on the use of Taguchi method to evaluate the optimum intake parameters to obtain the enhanced engine performance characteristics of diesel engine fuelled with TSME 20 (80% diesel and 20% Tamarind seed methyl ester) biodiesel blend. Injection pressure (IP), injection timing (IT) and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) were considered as input parameters and each parameter at three levels. Brake thermal efficiency (BTE), brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), hydrocarbon (HC), oxides of nitrogen (NO_X) and smoke opacity (SO) were chosen as performance parameters. In this study, Taguchi L₂₇ orthogonal array (OA) was considered. Taguchi method is highly effective when dealing with responses influenced by several parameters; it significantly minimises the number of tests needed to model and optimise the responses influenced by various input parameters. In addition, an ANOVA test was conducted for the performance parameters to evaluate individual input parameters and its percentage contribution. It was found that IT has most significant on BTE; NO_X and smoke emission was highly influenced by EGR rate, followed by IT and IP.     

Experimental studies on convective heat transfer coefficient of water/ethylene glycol-carbon nanotube nanofluids

ABSTRACT

The objective of the project is to study the enhancement of convective heat transfer of secondary refrigerants. It is the function of different volume fractions as well as different operating temperatures. This project deals with the use of CNT nanofluids with CNT as a nanoparticle and EG/water as a base fluid. In this study the theoretical study of CNT and thermo physical properties were reviewed and discussed. To investigate the convective heat transfer, an experimental set-up is required. The experimental set-up is used to compare the thermo physical properties of CNT nanofluids.

Abbreviations: CNT: carbon nanotube; EG: ethylene glycol; MWCNT: multi-walled carbon nanotube     

Integrating Forest Carbon Sequestration Into a Cap-and-Trade Program to Reduce Net CO2 Emissions

Problem: Most research on planning to mitigate climate change has focused on reducing CO2 emissions from coal-f?red power plants or the transportation sector. The contribution of forests to lowering net CO2 emissions has largely been overlooked. U.S. forests already offset about one eighth of the nation's annual CO2 emissions and have the potential to offset more, all at a relatively low cost. It will not be easy to integrate forest carbon sequestration into a cap-and-trade program to reduce net CO2 emissions, however.

Purpose: I explore what forest land use planning, forestry management practices, and land preservation strategies would be required to integrate forest carbon seques-tration into a cap-and- trade program, and explain the role planning and planners can play in promoting forest carbon seques-tration.

Methods: The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is a 10-state cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-f?red power plants in the northeastern United States. It provides a case study of how forest carbon sequestration can be included in a cap-and-trade program. Meanwhile, California has devised certif?able carbon credits from forestland. I analyze both approaches and generalize from them.

Results and conclusions: To promote forest carbon sequestration through a cap-and-trade program will require ensuring the permanence of CO2 reductions, minimizing leakage from forestland conversion, and obtaining prices for carbon offsets that are high enough to induce forestland owners to participate in the program and offer them for sale. The capital needed to purchase and monitor permanent forest conservation easements as well as to provide a stream of annual income for timberland owners may require a national system of carbon credits. Ideally, the easements would be set up in advance through investments by govern-ment or nonprof?ts, so that landowners will be ready to sell credits when they are demanded.

Takeaway for practice: A cap-and-trade system could be a cost-effective way to lower net CO2 emissions if it included certif?able, tradable credits from forestland preservation and management, and if the price of carbon credits were high enough to induce forest landowners to offer credits. To promote forest carbon sequestration, planners in rural areas should work with the local, state, and federal governments and nonprof?t land trusts to zone forestland at low densities, to preserve forest land through acquiring conservation ease ments, and to fashion forest management plans that ensure long cycles of timber harvesting. Planners in metropolitan areas should promote tree planting and tree retention ordinances to protect, expand, and manage urban forests to absorb greenhouse gases.

Research support: None.     

The effect of market conditions on the housing outcomes of subsidized households: the case of the US voucher programme

Abstract

Since being created in the 1970s, housing vouchers have become the primary mode of federal housing support for low-income households in the US. The voucher programme was designed to provide recipients with the mobility needed to secure higher quality housing in neighbourhoods of their choice. Decades of analysis suggest that the programme has failed to produce the favourable outcomes envisioned by policymakers. To add to our understanding of the outcomes of this important federal programme, this paper seeks to underscore the importance of context-dependent policy analysis. In particular, this study analyses the impact of housing market conditions on the outcomes achieved by voucher recipients. Using neighbourhood and housing outcome data from the American Housing Survey, and median rent and rental market vacancy data, this paper demonstrates the important role that market conditions play in programme outcomes. The results from this study suggest that voucher recipients are successful at improving housing unit quality outcomes regardless of market conditions, but the ability to move to a better neighbourhood is a function of vacancy rates.     

‘Mentally,we’re rather country people’ – planssplaining the quest for urbanity in Helsinki,Finland

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the concept of urbanity in a specific context, namely Helsinki, Finland. In a European context, Finland urbanized late. This lies at the heart of the common interpretation that Finland lacks an urban culture and urban lifestyles. Today, however, with the new comprehensive Urban Plan, city planners in Helsinki emphasize a paradigm shift towards urbanity. This paper seeks to understand this changing emphasis in planning by exploring how planners frame and understand urbanity. The paper concludes that within the Nordic welfare context more emphasis is needed to rethink whom urbanity serves and how it resonates with the prevention of segregation that the city also aims at.     

A question of what matters: landscape characterisation as a process of situated,problem-orientated public discourse

Abstract

Sustainable development is a principle with the potential to inspire and guide action, but it is also a nebulous idea which is hard to operationalise. The concept of landscape character helps to turn this principle into practical action. Landscape character can be defined as ‘the things that matter’ about a landscape. Landscape characterisation is the process of determining what matters by identifying and assessing the complex interactions and relationships between people and their environment. The central argument of this paper is that existing approaches to characterisation are failing to realise the full potential of the process for the pursuit of more just and sustainable landscapes. A transformed process of characterisation is needed: one which is situated, problem-orientated and rooted in public discourse. This approach is outlined in theoretical terms and its fuller potential is signposted through the particular example of Govan, an urban landscape in Scotland.     

Toward a Theory of Architecture Machines

Abstract

The fall 2009 option design studio at MIT—Ferry Slip Mashup—was the site of a pedagogical experiment in engaging the vast historical archive of disciplinary knowledge for the purposes of designing a ferry terminal on the Maine State Pier in Portland, Maine. While the first premise of the studio was that we needed to relearn how to think historically, its second premise was that we had to find an appropriately contemporary way to do that. And if the first premise pointed us to engaging the issue of precedent head on, the second ensured for our precedents the status of entries in a vast archive of architectural knowledge.     

Designing for practice: understanding technology use in rural community-based youth mental health contexts

Abstract

Social and mobile technologies appear to have remarkable scope to improve the access and quality of remote frontline mental health services. However, their potential has not yet been realised, due in part to an insufficient appreciation of remote mental health care settings as contexts for design. This study reports on a participatory design (PD) process involving mental health practitioners and clients, focusing on three participatory future workshops. Visioning, Scenario building and Mock-up phases encouraged participants to explore: (1.) What is needed and possible? (2.) Where would it fit? Who would use it and why? and (3.) How would it look, feel & function? These activities generated a contextualised understanding of frontline mental health service provision, and the possible roles of technology within it. PD methods were effective in a number of respects: defining domain criteria associated with mental health care; supporting community-based youth mental health professionals to articulate the roles of technology in their work; and identifying new opportunities for technologies in this space. Mental health applications can do more than provide a means of self-tracking or serve as a treatment surrogate; rather they can support clients’ autonomy with respect to self-discovery and direction-setting in treatment and recovery.     

Special Ethical Considerations for Planners in Private Practice

Problem, research strategy, and ­findings: Planners must constantly consider the ethics of their professional behavior, yet few studies have specifically investigated the ethical landscape for those planners working in private practice, assuming that all members of the profession are subject to similar ethical considerations. We investigate the particular ethical considerations faced by planners in private practice by interviewing owners of 10 planning consulting firms. Our sample size is very small and limited to three states, which limits the generalizability of the study. We find that private practice planners routinely experience ethical conflicts related to disclosure of information, balancing uneven benefits among stakeholders, interests of the client, and ethics of firm competition. Alhough planners mostly navigate everyday ethical concerns with confidence, they face ethical challenges in managing client relationships when values conflict, and in competing with other firms.

Takeaway for practice: We find that challenging ethical situations arise for private sector planners on a routine basis. The planners we interview feel that they are able to identify ethical pitfalls and choose the correct course of action, but more research is needed to understand the scope and nature of private practice ethical challenges, and to determine whether more education or enforcement would be effective solutions to between-firm conflicts.     

Tracking Our Footsteps

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: We conduct a systematic reading of all articles published in the past 30?years in three U.S.-based general planning journals, Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA), Journal of Planning Education and Research (JPER), and Journal of Planning Literature (JPL), using latent Dirichlet allocation, a text mining technique. We find that certain research themes remain important in the past 3 decades, such as planning process, planning methods, and land use/growth management, whereas others have lost their prominent status, such as planning theory and planning education. New fields such as food systems have emerged during the study period. Editorial regimes appear to be associated with theme dynamics.

Takeaway for practice: In this study we demonstrate a text mining method to effectively summarize a large amount of text data and track planning researchers’ footsteps in the study of planning issues reflected from published research articles. We identify past and emerging research trends in the studied journals that can help scholars situate their work in the literature and practitioners find collaboration opportunities. It also helps professional associations such as the American Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) and the APA open up new conference tracks and/or specialization groups/divisions so they can reflect the ever-changing interests of their memberships in a timely manner.     

Comparing Land Use Forecasting Methods: Expert Panel Versus Spatial Interaction Model

Problem: Legal requirements and good planning practice dictate that land development induced by major highway investments be forecasted. Two forecasting methods, the first qualitative and based on expert judgment and the second quantitative and based on formal spatial interaction models, are often presented as equivalent.

Purpose: We aim to extract lessons about the strengths and weaknesses of the two methods from a case study of a controversial highway, the Intercounty Connector (ICC), in the suburbs north of Washington, DC.

Methods: We compare forecasts of induced development obtained using both methods and judge their reasonableness against the empirical literature.

Results and conclusions: The two methods gave dramatically different results. The subjective judgment of experts predicted small impacts, on average, compared to a simple spatial interaction model. Also, subjectively forecasted impacts were limited to lands near the new facility, while modeled impacts rippled out across a much larger area. The subjective method seemed to give too little weight to accessibility effects and too much to zoning constraints, while a simple spatial interaction model seemed to do the opposite.

Takeaway for practice: Where time, budget, or data limitations preclude the development of state-of-the-art integrated land use and transportation models, we conclude based on this case study that the best approach is to combine simple models and expert judgment. Expert panels can be used to check model inputs against local knowledge and to adjust outputs in light of factors otherwise unaccounted for. Conversely, model outputs can be used to check expert opinion for inconsistency with known land use–transportation relationships.

Research support: None.