Building urban resilience with nature-based solutions: How can urban planning contribute?

Cities face increasing environmental, social and economic challenges that together threaten the resilience of urban areas and the residents who live and work there. These challenges include chronic stresses and acute shocks, amplified by climate change impacts. Nature-based solutions have emerged as a concept for integrating ecosystem-based approaches to address a range of societal challenges. Nature-based solutions directly address and contribute to increased urban resilience. However, implementing nature-based solutions is inherently complex, given the range of ecosystem services, their multi-functionality and the trade-offs between functions, and across temporal and spatial scales. Urban planning can play a substantial role to support the implementation of nature-based solutions and to manage trade-offs and conflicts, as well as how social equity dimensions are considered. This paper presents a framework that guides the application of urban planning to nature-based solutions’ implementation, by addressing key trade-offs across temporal, spatial, functional and social equity aspects. The framework highlights the key questions, and the supporting information required to address these questions, to underpin the inclusion of nature-based solutions for urban resilience. We find that while urban planning can contribute substantially, there are continuing gaps in how the inherently anthropocentric urban planning processes can give voice to non-human nature.     

Pearl aquaculture-profitable environmental remediation?

Bivalve molluscs are filter feeders, with pearl oysters able to filter water at rates up to 25 lh(-1)g(-1) of dry wt. tissue. Since this process leads to rapid bioaccumulation of recalcitrant pollutants such as heavy metals, organochlorine pesticides and hydrocarbons from impacted sites, it has prompted the widespread use of molluscs as biomonitors to quantify levels of marine pollution. This paper proposes pearl oyster deployment as a novel bioremediation technology for impacted sites to remove toxic contaminants, reduce nutrient loads and lower concentrations of microbial pathogens. Estimates extrapolated from the literature suggest that a modest pearl oyster farm of 100 t oyster material per year could remove 300 kg heavy metals plus 24 kg of organic contaminants via deposition into the tissue and shell. Furthermore, it was estimated that up to 19 kg of nitrogen may be removed from the coastal ecosystem per tonne of pearl oyster harvested. Pearl oysters are also likely to filter substantial amounts of sewage associated microbial pathogens from the water column. Method of cultivation and site selection are the key to minimising negative environmental impacts of bivalve cultivation. Deployment of oysters at sites with high nutrient and contaminant loadings would be advantageous, as these compounds would be removed from the ecosystem whilst generating a value-added product. Future potential may exist for harvesting bio-concentrated elements for commercial production.     

One city's ‘urban cosmography’

Illustrations of urban scenes naturally describe the physical characteristics of the places depicted. These representations also express implicitly broader beliefs which tie the spatial order of the surrounding world to local systems, institutions, and human actions. Images of a city embody, therefore, an ‘urban cosmography’, a concept inspired by early modern artisans' attempts to chart the contours of the world, both known and unknown. Seen from this perspective, historical graphics such as maps, posters, and birds-eye views document a city's position within a continually evolving universal order. This paper will review graphics drawn from the history of one city in particular: Baltimore, Maryland. Like other cities on the eastern seaboard of the US, Baltimore has been represented by diverse visual arts for more than two centuries. With the advent of digital and social media, Baltimore's development will depend even more upon the city's local and global interrelationships. ‘Urban cosmography’ is, therefore, a useful conceptual prism through which one may perceive the link between the city's historical legacy and contemporary urban challenges. One consequence is that visual tropes for traditional urban polarities – ‘growth’ versus ‘decay’, for instance – may be superseded by new symbols that incorporate both.     

Rural–urban migration and multinational firms

In this paper, we re-examine the analysis on multinational firms and the theory of international trade and investment in the set-up with urban unemployment. A great majority of the recipient (host) countries are developing economies that are characterized by rural–urban migration in the face of urban unemployment. Thus, they have relatively developed urban sectors and less developed rural sectors. In this context we explore the implications of tariffs and taxes on the urban unemployment rate and national income.     

Transnational urban policies: ‘relocating’ Spanish and Brazilian models of urban planning in Buenos Aires

This article examines the transnationalization of urban policies by analysing the adoption of two ‘foreign’ models of participatory urban planning in the city of Buenos Aires. Both schemes are modelled on internationally acclaimed experiments: Barcelona's Strategic Plan and Porto Alegre's Participatory Budget. In Buenos Aires, however, these policy transfers have failed to produce the remarkable results for which their Spanish and Brazilian exemplars have been internationally praised. Traditional accounts of policy transfers ponder on the institutional compatibility between imported schemes and host environments. The author argues that these works tend to overlook the significance of the stochastic conditions presiding over the adoption of particular policy models in different cities. She proposes to deviate from traditional approaches by seeking an explanation for the poor results of the schemes in Buenos Aires in (a) the contextual conditions framing their adoption in the Argentine capital, and (b) the circumstances surrounding their emergence in Barcelona and Porto Alegre.     

Are pharmaceuticals potent environmental pollutants? Part I: environmental risk assessments of selected active pharmaceutical ingredients

As part of achieving national environmental goals, the Swedish Government commissioned an official report from the Swedish Medical Products Agency on environmental effects of pharmaceuticals. Considering half-lives/biodegradability, environmental occurrence, and Swedish sales statistics, 27 active pharmaceutical ingredients were selected for environmental hazard and risk assessments. Although there were large data gaps for many of the compounds, nine ingredients were identified as dangerous for the aquatic environment. Only the sex hormones oestradiol and ethinyloestradiol were considered to be associated with possible aquatic environmental risks. We conclude that risk for acute toxic effects in the environment with the current use of active pharmaceutical ingredients is unlikely. Chronic environmental toxic effects, however, cannot be excluded due to lack of chronic ecotoxicity data. Measures to reduce potential environmental impact posed by pharmaceutical products must be based on knowledge on chronic ecotoxic effects of both active pharmaceutical ingredients as well as excipients. We believe that the impact pharmaceuticals have on the environment should be further studied and be given greater attention such that informed assessments of hazards as well as risks can be done.     

Ambivalent landscapes—wilderness in the urban interstices

This paper explores the origins and development of ambivalent responses to particular contemporary urban landscapes in historical ideas about human relationships with nature and wilderness, and suggests that post-modern wilderness may be found in the urban interstices: in woodland, abandoned allotments, river corridors, derelict or brownfield sites and especially areas in which the spontaneous growth of vegetation through natural succession suggests that nature is in control. We propose that these interstitial wilderness landscapes have numerous important functions as well as being rich repositories of meaning with implications both for theorizing nature–human relationships and for urban landscape planning and design.     

Polluting facilities and environmental justice – a study

The environmental justice movement attempts to examine the disproportionate exposure of environmental pollution on minority and low‐income people, understand the patterns of such disproportionate exposures and develop strategies to reduce and eliminate such exposures. Unlike several environmental justice studies that include all fifty states of the United States, this study examines the locations of manufacturing facilities that pollute in states with predominantly high African‐American populations. Our analysis indicates that polluting facilities tend to choose counties with higher proportion of nonwhite populations. Per capita incomes of people living within 5‐miles of the facilities are lower than per capita incomes of people living in the host counties Contrary to the conventional wisdom, population density per square mile both within 1 mile and 5 miles of the facility are much higher than the state population densities.     

Resilient urban drainage – Options of an optimized area-management

There is a need for an integrated approach for all involved stakeholders to adapt urban infrastructures to climate change effects and to take into account uncertainties of future developments. By integrating all relevant planning disciplines, a first step towards implementation of resilient technical and social infrastructures can be achieved. With the major goal of optimizing area-management as part of water sensitive urban design, the water sector and its area requirements build the main focus of this study. After identifying local flood hazards and potential surficial retention areas, the additional usage of decentralized stormwater management facilities for flood protection is tested in selected sectors. The results of the study confirm that the combined usage of decentralized facilities for pluvial flooding is a first step to protect urban infrastructure. It shows that decentralized facilities are more flexible than centralized facilities and, thus, have a higher adaptation capacity which is needed considering the various effects of climate change.     

Climate change and China’s mega urban regions

China’s mega urban regions are focal points of economic development and environmental concerns. This paper positions four mega urban regions (i.e., the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the Bohai Bay Area, and the South-eastern Fujian Province) along China’s coast into the national economy and elaborates their development challenges and planning innovations. Mega urban regions in China are spatial consequences of rapid economic transition. They deserve close scrutiny and demands for innovative planning responses in order to maintain their key role in driving economic growth but limiting their greenhouse gas emission.     

What may culture contribute to urban sustainability? Critical reflections on the uses of culture in urban development in Oslo and beyond

Culture and capital play vital roles in urban change. This paper provides a discussion of the relation between culture and capital, followed by a discussion of their relation in the urban context, including an empirical example from Oslo, Norway. Emphasis will be put on the role of culture in the creative city thesis and how culture relates to the concept of urban sustainability. A critique of neoliberal and instrumental uses of culture in the creative city thesis is also undertaken. Policies on culture-led urban regeneration often pay more attention to economic motives than to culture itself. The paper calls for establishing a reflective cultural policy that is not subsumed to economic sustainability, and for the need to escape the anthropological conception of culture as a whole way of life.     

Production and transport of urban wet weather pollution in combined sewer systems: the “Marais” experimental urban catchment in Paris

An experimental catchment area was set up in the centre of Paris (France) so as to follow up the quality of wet weather flows from the entry to the exit of a combined sewer network. The distinctive characteristic of this site is its location in a town centre and the extent of the equipment used to monitor the water pollution over the whole length of its course through the catchment area. The results obtained show a change in quality between the runoff entering the sewer network and the combined storm water flow at the sewer's outlet, which cannot be explained only by the mixture with domestic wastewater. In particular, an increase was observed in the concentrations of suspended solids (SS), VSS, COD, BOD and Cu, in the proportion of pollutants linked to particles and in the characteristics of the particles. A calculation of the total masses going in and out of the sewer network during a rainfall event shows that the erosion of in-sewer pollution stocks is the main source of particles and of organic matter in wet weather flows, whereas heavy metals loads originated from roof runoff, due to the corrosion of metallic roofs. Particles eroded from the sewer sediments during rain events were found to be quite different from the particles of type A deposits and organic biofilms. Nevertheless, they have mean organic and metallic loads that are of the same order of magnitude as the particles of the organic layer at water sediment interface. A change in the chemical form of heavy metals was noticed during the transport in the sewer and it is suspected that a fraction of the dissolved metals from the runoff is adsorbed on sewer sediments.     

Bodenständigkeit: the environmental epistemology of modernism

Focussing on late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century imperial Germany, this article examines how environmental thinking shaped the development of modern architecture and urban planning. The environment took on an acute importance in the rapidly industrialising and colonising Empire, prompting a wide range of projects, from landscape conservation and the design of garden suburbs to pioneering soil research and colonial planning. What made these diverging scientific, political and design undertakings understandable as environmental projects is the notion of Bodenständigkeit—the quality of something rooted in, or uniquely appropriate to, the soil on which it stands. This idea was more than just the symptom of a romantic or anti-modern mind set; it was part and parcel of a novel environmental way of thinking, prompting discussions about the future and conservation of urban and natural landscapes, the form of new buildings and settlements, and the methods of domestic and overseas colonisation. Bodenständigkeit, this article argues, is not only a primary category of early environmental conservation but the first version of an environmental determinism that would come to structure twentieth-century modernism at large.     

Do urban casinos affect nearby neighbourhoods? Evidence from Canada

We analyse the effect of new casinos on nearby neighbourhoods using data from casinos opened in Canada between 1986?2007. We find no evidence linking casino openings to nearby population growth or changes in residents' income, composition by age, gender, marital status, and home ownership status. We find evidence of negative casino effects on the growth of housing values and rent. The effect is substantial near casinos, a nearly 8 percentage‐point loss in the growth of home values over 5 years, but has limited influence and dissipates quickly over distance. The estimated effect on housing rents is comparable in terms of standard deviation.     

Okun’s law and urban spillovers in US unemployment

Using data for 2002–2010 from 358 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), we estimate Okun’s law which accounts for national shocks and spatial spillovers in urban areas. Our scale of measurement is changed to the state level, allowing us to capture a different source of spatial dependence on unemployment. Our main finding is that MSA-specific growth has a small effect on MSA unemployment rate, implying that in a well-integrated labor market like the USA, unemployment at an urban level is highly dependent on neighboring and national labor market conditions. Our results also show that the driving forces behind the behavior of unemployment for MSAs are different than those for states.     

Spanish urban law,changes after Aznar´s law

It is common to blame 1998 urban law, promoted by the president Aznar, the present Spanish urban situation defined by the unnecessary construction of housing units. But the analysis of the Aznar´s urban law requires to briefly describing the Spanish urban law development, at least since the 1956 urban law. In 2007, after that ´marvellous decade´, and along with the real estate bubble burst, Spain went through a major change on urban law model which ended in the 2013 3R Act, the law for the urban sustainable development and the existing city intervention.     

Path-dependency in public–private partnership in French urban renewal

Public–private partnership in urban renewal in France concerns mainly housing, transport infrastructure and large public facilities. The distinction between public, private and civil actors does not concern social and economic development. This situation tends to limit the integration of different issues and approaches in renewal projects. Also, French urban renewal projects do not produce a new type of partnership between public and private actors and the regulatory framework. These projects remain publicly dominated policy-making procedures because of the uneven distribution of resources and assets and despite a policy discourse emphasising the need for a new division of work between state, market and civil society. The current French situation cannot be understood without bearing in mind the history of urban planning policies in France. Using a historical analysis and the path-dependence approach, we highlight the resilience of inherited structures of interaction between public and private actors.     

Futurescapes of urban regeneration: ten years of design for the unfolding urban legacy of London’s Olympic Games, 2008–2018

ABSTRACT

Much of the literature on the urban legacy of the 2012 Olympics Games emerging in recent years has emphasized the form that development has taken and the ways in which this aligns (or not) with specific promises made in terms of regeneration before the Games. Though plenty of discussion of planning procedure has occurred in this context, less emphasis has been placed on how the process, rather than the products, of urban change has been envisioned through legacy planning and urban design, and the significance of this for regeneration. Given that London’s much-heralded ‘regeneration legacy’ was, from the early days of the Olympic bid, portrayed as a long-term process aimed at addressing historical issues of socio-economic disparity in East London, and that planning and urban design would play key roles in anticipating it, this contribution to the literature is timely. The paper focuses on the period from 2008 to 2018, beginning with the launch of the what was called the Legacy Masterplan Framework. Drawing on empirical analysis of documents describing the main stages of legacy planning and design between these years, it then examines how regeneration as a ‘futurescape’ encompassing numerous aspects of timing and temporality has been anticipated, planned and evolved.     

The budding environmental clean‐up (a viewpoint)

Progress has certainly been made since pollution awareness of the public has grown over the last three years. In many countries and in several domains, far more severe standards have been enacted to safeguard against further fouling of the environment, and efforts have been made to clean up the already created mess. Some solutions, some proposals, some ideas are briefly outlined in this paper.

The paper is divided into two parts: in the first one the writers examine the reactions and interactions of the environmental factors and survey some blatant cases of pollution damage; the second instalment deals with clean‐up, costs and economic growth, supporting the demand for a high quality environment and examining its economic feasibility.