Measurement indicators and an evaluation approach for assessing urban sustainable development: A case study for China's Jining City

Cities are complex ecosystems affected by social, economic, environmental, and cultural factors. The problem of attaining urban sustainable development is thus an important challenge. The development of evaluation indicators and a method for assessing the status of urban sustainable development will be required to support urban ecological planning, construction, and management. By using Jining City in China's Shandong Province as a case study, the authors developed a system of 52 indicators of urban sustainable development that address economic growth and efficiency, ecological and infrastructural construction, environmental protection, social and welfare progress. The authors developed a Full Permutation Polygon Synthetic Indicator method to evaluate the capacity for urban sustainable development at different times during the next two decades. The results of our research indicate that the value of a synthetic indicator for sustainable development of Jining City was 0.24 in 2004, which indicates a low level of sustainable development. According to the ecological planning of Jining City (2004–2020), the indicator will improve to 0.45 in 2007 and 0.62 in 2010, indicating significant improvements in sustainable development, and will reach 0.90 in 2020, indicating excellent potential for sustainable development. The Full Permutation Polygon Synthetic Indicator method provides a comprehensive, intuitive approach that reflects the system integration principle that the whole can be more than the sum of its parts. The approach thus provides a promising basis for decision-making to support urban sustainable development and monitoring of the effectiveness of these decisions.     

小城镇可持续发展评价体系研究

基于广义的可持续发展概念，研究了我国小城镇建设的可持续发展问题，提出了符合我国国情的小城镇可持续发展评价方法和评价指标体系，为促进我国城镇化的快速、健康、高效发展以及为制定我国小城镇可持续发展的相关政策提供理论依据。     

我国抗震鉴定的发展

对我国抗震鉴定进行了历史的回顾和现状的分析,介绍了我国抗震鉴定的主要方法,并对抗震鉴定技术未来的发展进行展望,指出应采用小震不坏、中震可修、大震不倒的三水准抗震设计思想,以减少地震带来的损失。     

城市小区规划可持续发展指标体系

阐述了指标的概念，在研究了河南省城市小区可持续发展能力指数的基础上，从人口指标、资源指标、环境指标、经济指标方面，对城市小区可持续发展能力进行了综合评价。     

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.     

An investigation of stakeholder analysis in urban development projects: Empirical or rationalistic perspectives

The increasing research interest in multi-stakeholder analysis in urban planning reflects a growing recognition that stakeholders can and should influence the decision-making of urban development projects. Methods for identifying and prioritising stakeholders and their interests are explored in this study, and two perspectives (empiricism and rationalism) for stakeholder analysis are proposed. Two case studies, one regional renewal project and the other an infrastructure project, are presented to verify the usefulness of these two analysis perspectives. The results from the case studies show that no one method for stakeholder analysis is perfect; the selection of analytical perspective is an art with extensive considerations of ‘when, what, and how’ to choose methods to achieve the project objectives. Applying both empirical and rationalistic perspectives and comparing the analysis results when necessary are proposed as the best way to analyse stakeholders.     

Hydro-environmental changes and their influence on the subsurface environment in the context of urban development

The relationship between urban development and hydro-environmental change, particularly with regard to the subsurface environment is examined for three coastal cities affected by Asian monsoons (Tokyo and Osaka in Japan, and Bangkok in Thailand). Major differences in subsurface changes among these cities are closely related to city size, urban structure, and the timing, stage and extent of urbanization as well as the natural environment. The work shows that the urban development has not affected the Bangkok subsurface hydro-environment in the same way it has in Tokyo and Osaka. Three reasons for the difference account for this, (1) Bangkok's abundant annual rainfall, (2) Bangkok has the smallest ratio of impervious pavement surface area, meaning that surface water can more easily infiltrate underground., (3) the degree and extent of urbanization. Bangkok's subsurface hydro-environment has not been heavily affected because underground development has not yet reached deep subterranean areas.By researching yet more cities, at different stages of urbanization to that of Tokyo, Osaka and Bangkok, we plan to quantitatively examine urbanization and its influence on subsurface hydro-environments. This research will help limit damage to developing cities that are not yet experiencing subsurface failures but which are expected to confront these problems in the future.     

Development of an urban health and wellbeing index for work precincts: A comparative study in Sydney,Australia

Work precincts are recognized for their significant role as generators of employment and associated commerce within urban areas. This study describes a method for analyzing the physical characteristics of urban work precincts in promoting the health and wellbeing of their occupants. The following physical parameters are analyzed: public transport accessibility, green and blue spaces, food environments, fitness facilities, supermarkets, and grocery stores. The parameters are assessed using quantitative spatial analysis based on street network data, as well as point of interest data acquired from OpenStreetMap (OSM). The streets and their intersections are stored in the OSM database as links and nodes, respectively. The evaluation of the performance metrics involves measuring the street network distance from each node to the closest node of interest for each parameter. The metrics are then combined, forming an urban health and wellbeing index (UHWI), which can be used to compare the performance of different precincts. The method was tested by investigating four work precincts in Sydney, Australia, all hosting a large office building belonging to the same business institution. Our results identified two of the four precincts with a high UHWI and resulted in the identification of one underperforming precinct.     

Multiple dimensions of urban design development from a practice perspective:A case study of an institute in Nanjing

The rapid urbanization process in China has promoted the active state of urban design practice.In the process of solving complex problems,the practical scope of urban design has gradually expanded.This paper took a design institution in Nanjing as a case study and sorted the trends in design project types and themes over the past 20 years,which pre-sented a partial and diverse state of evolution in urban design practice.Concept,technology and management were extracted as the three main dimensions of cognitive urban design prac-tice development.The relative positions and relationships of different types of urban design work were interpreted through mapping analysis of these three dimensions.This study pro-vided a foundation for the practical orientation of urban design in China and a platform for communication among managers,urban design practitioners,scholars of related disciplines,and the public.     

Multiple dimensions of urban design development from a practice perspective: A case study of an institute in Nanjing

The rapid urbanization process in China has promoted the active state of urban design practice. In the process of solving complex problems, the practical scope of urban design has gradually expanded. This paper took a design institution in Nanjing as a case study and sorted the trends in design project types and themes over the past 20 years, which presented a partial and diverse state of evolution in urban design practice. Concept, technology and management were extracted as the three main dimensions of cognitive urban design practice development. The relative positions and relationships of different types of urban design work were interpreted through mapping analysis of these three dimensions. This study provided a foundation for the practical orientation of urban design in China and a platform for communication among managers, urban design practitioners, scholars of related disciplines, and the public.     

以汉正街为例探讨武汉旧城区发展动力机制

根据武汉的地方特点,以传统商业区及传统居住区为讨论对象,从社会、历史、经济等方面分析了其衰退的原因,由内及外的对旧城区的动力机制进行了分析探讨,以发现城市发展规律,从而对旧城区有清晰全面的认识。