THE “ENTREPRENEURIAL STATE” IN “CREATIVE INDUSTRY CLUSTER” DEVELOPMENT IN SHANGHAI

ABSTRACT: Literature on China's urban development discusses the nature and role of the local state. A set of concepts have been proposed, such as the “entrepreneurial state” (ES) and “local developmental state,” and an ongoing debate attempts to ascertain whether the state is “entrepreneurial” in nature. This article uses a newly emerged urban phenomenon, chuangyi chanye jiju qu (CCJQs) or “creative industry clusters,” in which the central government is not involved, to explore the nature of local governments, their role in urban development, and the ways in which they perform this role. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are used. The findings of this research reveal a strong revenue‐oriented nature of local governments, highlighting the “entrepreneurial state” as an important dimension in their character: they transform spontaneously emerged urban cultural spaces into a new mechanism generating revenues for both urban growth and their own economic benefit. Local governments promote CCJQ development with place promotion strategies, and they are directly involved in CCJQ‐related businesses as market players rather than as independent bodies that effectively control and regulate the CCJQ market through policies and regulations. Further, this article reveals a “public–public” coalition as an important mechanism for local state participation.     

Infostructures: Towards a Complementary Approach for Solving Urban Challenges through Digital Technologies

Abstract

Population growth in cities has led to unprecedented pressure on urban infrastructure services, such as electricity supply and public transport. As a consequence cities need to find sustainable solutions to maintain the availability of services while keeping them economically and environmentally viable. One traditional approach is to expand infrastructure, but this can be expensive, take years from planning to realization, and be politically frought. In this paper we discuss the concept of “infostructures” as cost and time-effective complementary approaches that leverage digital layers and urban digital media channels of the cityscape. Through four case studies and their analysis we illustrate opportunities for addressing different types of “unhealthy” situations with digital technologies.     

Do Industrial Preservation Policies Protect and Promote Urban Industrial Activity?

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: In recent years, several major cities have implemented industrial preservation policies to attract and retain industrial uses after facing acute pressures to rezone often centrally located industrial land to “higher and better” uses. Minimal research to date, however, has examined how effective industrial preservation policies have been at protecting and promoting urban industrial activity. In this study, we ask how New York City’s (NY) Industrial Business Zone (IBZ) program affected four measures of urban industrial activity—industrial business registrations, industrial employment, industrial building permits, and industrial land—in IBZs in New York City. We benchmark our results against a comparison group established using propensity score matching. We find that the IBZ program had a significant impact on retaining industrial land in IBZs but that it did not have a significant impact on promoting new industrial business registrations, employment, or building permits in IBZs.

Takeaway for practice: Our research provides evidence of how various measures of urban industrial activity change following the designation of an industrial preservation policy. This research suggests that industrial preservation policies can be an effective tool to stem urban industrial land losses in cities facing land use conversion pressures, but that such policies need to create more robust linkages with economic development planning objectives. In the interest of continuing to protect middle-class industrial job opportunities in central cities, planners and practitioners should consider how to strengthen ties between physical land use planning and economic development planning.     

Towards Post-Anthropocentric Cities: Reconceptualizing Smart Cities to Evade Urban Ecocide

ABSTRACT

This short piece acts as a coda to this journal’s special issue on “Smart Cities and Innovative Technologies.” First, it provides a retrospective view of the origins of the smart city concept. The paper, secondly, presents the most recent perspectives on the new interpretations of the smart city notion. It then provides a commentary on the potential directions for a better reconceptualization of smart cities to evade a most likely urban ecocide. Lastly, the short communication concludes by asking two critical questions: (a) Will urban scholars, planners, designers, and activists be able to convince urban policymakers and the general public of the need for a post-anthropocentric urban turnaround? (b) How do the public, private, and academic sectors along with communities pave the way for post-anthropocentric cities and more-than-human futures?     

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?     

THE COORDINATION OF LOCAL POLICIES FOR URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION IN FOUR SWISS CITIES

ABSTRACT: The present article aims at assessing the possibility for urban areas to coordinate local policies of urban development and public transportation and at explaining the differences in this achievement between urban regions. In order to do so, the study draws support from two empirical sources: a historical analysis of the “mass‐production” generated by the public service sectors in the field of transport and urban development in the cities of Basel, Bern, Geneva, and Lausanne since 1950, and a series of six case studies in these four cities. The study identifies factors located both at context level regarding morphological and geographical conditions as well as institutional settings and case‐specific idiosyncrasies regarding organizational structure, past policy decisions, as well as vocational cultures that determine the possibility for urban areas to meet the need for policy coordination.     

Managing change: Seattle’s 21st century urban renaissance

ABSTRACT

Evolution of the urban planning and historic preservation disciplines has resulted in an “uneasy alliance” in practice, one further complicated by the back-to-the-city movement and increased development pressure in older urban neighbourhoods. In Seattle, as in other U.S. cities, the pace, intensity and scale of redevelopment has caused dramatic spatial and social transformations. Although research has shown that older built fabric provides economic and social benefit for cities, neither regulations created by planners for guiding redevelopment nor strategies created by preservationists for retaining urban heritage have been successful in reconciling these different, yet interconnected, sets of values. We engage three Seattle neighbourhood case studies to clarify and evaluate policies, programs and strategies used by planners and preservationists for reimagining neighbourhood transformations. This work suggests a need for more creative, integrative collaboration between the two fields to simultaneously engage – and reconcile – social and economic tensions caused by urban redevelopment.     

Guerrillas in the [Urban] Midst: Developing and Using Creative Research Methods—Guerrilla Research Tactics

Abstract

This paper explores what we are calling “Guerrilla Research Tactics” (GRT): research methods that exploit emerging mobile and cloud-based digital technologies. We examine some case studies in the use of this technology to generate research data directly from the physical fabric and the people of the city. We argue that GRT is a new and novel way of engaging public participation in urban, place-based research because it facilitates the co-creation of knowledge, with city inhabitants, “on the fly.” This paper discusses the potential of these new research techniques and what they have to offer researchers operating in the creative disciplines and beyond. This work builds on and extends Gauntlett's “new creative methods” (2007) and contributes to the existing body of literature addressing creative and interactive approaches to data collection.     

Urban Acupuncture: Hybrid Social and Technological Practices for Hyperlocal Placemaking

Abstract

This paper considers an emerging planning practice that uses networked connections to interact with urban places and re-create enlivened cities. The paper presents “urban acupuncture” as a new planning approach that broadens communication and strategically targets interventions across the city. Defined as an approach, which, through the use of digital social networks and interactions, involves citizens and planners in place activations in order to stimulate and reinvigorate place, thus creating meaningful relationships between citizens and their urban settings. This paper uses the UR[BNE] Brisbane Festival 2012 as a qualitative case study of urban acupuncture, best defined as a hyper-localized healing treatment through place activation to enliven and recreate cities. It examines the challenges faced and opportunities embraced by a network of urban professionals. Their aim was to activate the underused urban spaces of central Brisbane through the festival's activities and events. The findings identify the key elements required to design public spaces using socially and technologically networked interactions.     

Planning transport infrastructure: examining the politics of transport planning in Melbourne,Sydney and Perth

Abstract

Australian cities have observed a “consensus turn” expressed as broad public support of greater accessibility and public transport provision as revealed in metropolitan strategic plans. In contrast large-scale road projects proposed to traverse the inner-city of three major Australian cities reveals an ongoing and deep-seated attachment by some to car-based travel in Australian urban transport planning. Comparative case studies of these three road projects in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth explores the impact that an antagonistic relationship between the state and community has on the culture of transport planning. Through observational insights, policy and media analysis and interviews with community groups, we show that this antagonistic planning culture arises when there is a fracture between metropolitan strategic plan-making and project planning, and when clear channels of communication and deliberation are undermined.     

Are South Africa’s cities too small?

Are South African cities to small? Given the history of South Africa’s spatial development, one might expect that South African cities might be under-sized, and not over-sized as in many other developing countries. It is found that the rank-size distribution explains the sizes of South Africa’s cities but that Zipf’s Law does not hold for the country’s cities. The so-called q-coefficient was found to be equal to −0.75 for the 123 places with population in excess of 100 000. It was also found that urbanisation in South Africa over the past decade seems to have taken the form of the parallel (slow, 1.04%) growth of five large cities. Finally, calculating the “H-measure” for 19 metropolitan areas in South Africa yields an inverse H-measure of 11.3. This suggests a reasonable degree of dispersal, which would only be consistent with optimal city size if transport costs were low and manufacturing not in need of scale economies; two conditions unlikely to apply to South Africa. Finally, the primacy ratio for South Africa’s largest urban agglomeration was found to be 38%. This suggests that the size of the Johannesburg-East Rand urban agglomeration (the primate city) may be relatively too large, whereas more efficient growth may come from larger harbour cities.     

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT,HOUSING AND ZONING: A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Extensive economic development and central business district expansion generate both positive and negative public impacts; assessing those impacts is a major challenge for urban social and economic analysts. For students of urban politics and policy processes, the strategies and conflict patterns surrounding the generation and distribution of these impacts are of central interest. This paper examines exactive zoning/housing trust fund programs in San Francisco and Boston…the most far-reaching examples of emerging policies adopted by cities to shift pan of the public costs of private economic development back to the developer. The paper suggests that two conditions must be present for exaction programs to be implemented: (1) CBD demand so high that monies can be “creamed off” for redistribution without causing developers to “exit,” and (2) the mobilization of community and neighborhood interests to counter pro-CBD-growth advocates. The exaction programs in both cities, though not panaceas, appear to be generating substantial funds for housing.     

MANAGING COMPETITION IN CITY SERVICES: THE CASE OF BARCELONA

ABSTRACT: “Clean and safe” strategies are part of urban regeneration in the entrepreneurial city. These strategies are often characterized by privatization and public–private partnerships that enhance investment and create a city space more amenable to tourists and consumers. While such approaches promote increased investment, and differentiate services by district, they raise challenges of competition, cost escalation, and public participation. Barcelona's solid waste management strategy is presented to show the importance of a strong public coordination role when using competition to promote technological innovation and improved quality in city service delivery.     

Emerging Workplaces in Post-Functionalist Cities

ABSTRACT

This paper explores new types of workplaces that are emerging due to the growing flexibility in work arrangements and the use of information and communication technologies. In addition to home and office, third places, such as libraries and coffee shops, are increasingly used as temporary workplaces. Moreover, there is a proliferation of co-working spaces that are designed as temporary working locations. Thus, the boundaries between traditional urban functions have become blurred; different functions co-exist in the same spaces, and new functionalities emerge as people take spaces into new uses. We may call our cities “post-functionalist,” ones that are no longer based only on predetermined and designed functions. However, there has been little research on the spatial characteristics of these new workplaces as well as on the social features within these places. These phenomena have been empirically studied through observational studies, interviews, and spatial analyses of three such sites: Café Köket, Meetingpoint, and Helsinki Think Company in the city center of Helsinki. The results reveal new forms of appropriation of public and semi-public spaces for working purposes that have not yet been analyzed in the context of existing urban policies and practices. The findings provide input for future visions and the planning of new workplaces.     

论城乡规划编制过程中的公众参与

《城乡规划法》确立了城乡规划公开原则,建立了公众参与制度。本文通过对城乡规划编制过程中公众参与的目的、参与阶段、参与模式的探讨,得出公众参与的经验,总结了城乡规划编制过程中公众参与的重要性。     

Model Cities First Round: Politics,Planning, and Participation

The provision for “widespread citizen participation” in the basic Model Cities legislation has been implemented in the context of a growing social movement by residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods for a greater role in neighborhood and citywide decision-making. The struggle between neighborhood groups and city hall for control over the Model Cities program has characterized the “planning stage” in many cities. Community decision organizations, such as urban renewal agencies, boards of education, health and welfare councils, and anti-poverty agencies, active in the initial stages of planning in many cities, have been eclipsed by the neighborhood-city hall struggle, but they may participate more actively later in specification and implementation of plans. Meantime, the complex sociopolitical contest of Model Cities planning offers a challenge to the present generation of planners and important implications for the education of the next generation.     

Smart Cities and Mobility: Does the Smartness of Australian Cities Lead to Sustainable Commuting Patterns?

ABSTRACT

Smart cities have become a popular concept because they have the potential to create a sustainable and livable urban future. Smart mobility forms an integral part of the smart city agenda. This paper investigates “smart mobility” from the angle of sustainable commuting practices in the context of smart cities. This paper studies a multivariate multiple regression model within a panel data framework and examines whether increasing access to broadband Internet connections leads to the choice of a sustainable commuting mode in Australian local government areas. In this case, access to the Internet is used as a proxy for determining urban smartness, and the use of different modes of transport including working at home is used to investigate sustainability in commuting behavior. The findings show that an increasing access to broadband Internet reduces the level of working from home, public transport use, and active transport use, but increases the use of private vehicles, perhaps to overcome the fragmentation of work activities the Internet creates. How to overcome the need for car-based travel for fragmented work activities while increasing smartness through the provisioning of broadband access should be a key smart city agenda for Australia to make its cities more sustainable.     

“GOOD” NEIGHBORHOODS IN PORTLAND,OREGON: FOCUS ON BOTH SOCIAL AND PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENTS

ABSTRACT: We conduct an empirical investigation of the social environment of “good” neighborhoods in physical form in a model of the “compact city,” Portland, Oregon and discuss the implications for design and evaluation of policies inspired by smart growth and new urbanist movements that focus on the urban form and transportation dimensions of neighborhoods, and of housing assistance policies designed to change the economic mix in neighborhoods. We conceptualize the physical and social dimensions of the “good” neighborhood environment and develop an approach to operationalization that uses publicly available data. Our findings indicate that for the most part, Portland has been successful in creating neighborhoods at several economic scales that feature not only the connectivity, accessibility, mixed land use, and access to public transit that characterize “good” neighborhoods from a physical perspective, but also a “good” social environment indicative of strong ties and collective efficacy. However, there are signs that in the process, Portland may be creating poverty areas that lack connectivity, accessibility, and access to public transit and a mix of destinations.     

健康生活导向下的西方城市公共空间发展研究

以健康生活导向视角追溯西方发达国家城市公共空间发展历程,基于各自不同历史背景、医学模式、公共空间类别及健康生活实现方式,将其归纳为3个重要阶段:神圣敬畏的"公共园林"启蒙期、改善公共健康的城市公共空间发展期、开启多元健康的生活方式成熟期;由此揭示健康生活导向下西方城市公共空间呈现从"单一维度"到"多维融合"、从"消极被动补给"到"积极主动引导"、从"公共"到"共享"的3个发展转变趋势。旨在推动我国以人民健康幸福生活为导向的公园城市建设健康有序发展。     

“Mapping” Smart Cities

ABSTRACT

Smart cities are designed to use data to optimize resources, maintain sustainability, and improve people’s quality of life. While many urban technologies are employed to make cities “smart,” one constellation of technologies has been less examined in the academic literature—digital maps and the spatial data infrastructure. This paper is an attempt to systematically review the functions and evolution of digital maps and the spatial data infrastructure, with examples from Asia and beyond, in supporting and making smart cities possible. Based on the conceptual framework and empirical case studies, four major research directions of smart mapping are identified to better support smart city initiatives.