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Topic Review
Urban Vulnerability
Urban vulnerability can be defined as the process produced by the combination of many disadvantaged dimensions in which any possibility of upward social mobility, and overcoming social condition exclusions, is extremely hard to achieve. Usually, the more vulnerable and distressed areas lack basic services and have a higher number of obsolete buildings, unfavorable social characteristics, vulnerable people, and more prominent gender differences. 
  • 3.2K
  • 26 Oct 2021
Topic Review
A Connected Community Approach to Building Community Resilience
Urban resilience research is recognizing the need to complement a mainstream preoccupation with “hard” infrastructure (electrical grid, storm sewers, etc.) with attention to the “soft” (social) infrastructure issues that include the increased visibility of and role for civil society, moving from (top-down, paternalistic) government to (participatory) governance. Analyses of past shock events invariably point to the need for more concerted efforts in building effective governance and networked relations between civil society groupings and formal institutions before, during, and after crisis. However, the literature contains little advice on how to go about this. A Connected Communities Approach is advanced that offers the missing guidance, and it's key features are explained.
  • 1.1K
  • 20 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Smart City Industries
Smart city industries can be defined as construction businesses based on IT manufacturing (precision instruments, electrical and electronic equipment), IT services (communications and broadcasting) and knowledge services (six fields such as finance and insurance, real estate and lease, professional, scientific and technical services). 
  • 2.0K
  • 06 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Peri-Urban Ecosystem Services in Europe
The phenomenon of urbanization affecting our era has seen the shift of the city from compact and well-defined structures to agglomerations with a seamless expansion. This has led to several environmental consequences that have affected the urbanized areas and the surroundings. The peri-urban areas may be the main urban design and planning challenge of the 21st century. These hybrid landscapes, characterized by high fragmentation, can be turned into opportunities to improve the sustainability and quality of urban areas, generating multiple economic, social and environmental benefits. Areas beyond the immediate urban core can be considered a zone of influence, which represent a critical resource in terms of provisioning, regulating, supporting services and cultural ecosystem services.
  • 722
  • 01 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Participatory Methods for Urban Development
Despite the fact that vulnerable communities are the most affected by unplanned cities, considerably less attention has been given to involving them in urban development in order to ensure equitable outcomes. In this regard, there is an urgent need for governments to introduce and enforce processes that allow citizens, including vulnerable communities, to participate in development planning and policymaking. However, at present, there is a lack of guidance for practitioners regarding the definition of a clear purpose of community engagement and the selection of appropriate participatory methods to fulfil the set purpose. This study provides a thorough account of the participatory methods that can be used to achieve various engagement goals throughout the urban development process. This structured literature review used 71 reports published from 2000 to 2020. The review revealed 34 participatory methods, wherein most of the methods are devoted to informing, consulting and involving communities, whilst only a few methods are available for interactive public participation that supports true collaboration and empowerment. The study identified 12 purposes of community engagement in urban development, and mapped the 34 participatory methods for achieving them. The analysed case studies showed that the current community engagement practices are mainly in the pre-design and briefing stages of the urban development processes, and that most projects are aiming to achieve the ‘inform’ and ‘consult’ levels of engagement, with a few aiming to achieve the ‘involve’ and ‘collaborate’ levels. This study shows that community engagement is often overlooked during the professional design, development and post-development phases. The paper presents an onion model which can be used by practitioners to choose appropriate participatory methods based on the intended urban development phase, the engagement level and the purpose of the community engagement.
  • 2.2K
  • 16 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Causalities of Upscaled Urban Aquaponics
Aquaponics, the water-reusing production of fish and crops, is taken as an example to investigate the consequences of upscaling a nature-based solution in a circular city. We developed an upscaled-aquaponic scenario for the German metropolis of Berlin, analysed the impacts, and studied the system dynamics. To meet the annual fish, tomato, and lettuce demand of Berlin’s 3.77 million residents would require approximately 370 aquaponic facilities covering a total area of 224 hectares and the use of different combinations of fish and crops: catfish/tomato (56%), catfish/lettuce (13%), and tilapia/tomato (31%). As a predominant effect, in terms of water, aquaponic production would save about 2.0 million m3 of water compared to the baseline. On the supply-side, we identified significant causal link chains concerning the Food-Water-Energy nexus at the aquaponic facility level as well as causal relations of a production relocation to Berlin. On the demand-side, a ‘freshwater pescatarian diet’ is discussed. The new and comprehensive findings at different system levels require further investigations on this topic. Upscaled aquaponics can produce a relevant contribution to Berlin’s sustainability and to implement it, research is needed to find suitable sites for local aquaponics in Berlin, possibly inside buildings, on urban roofscape, or in peri-urban areas. 
  • 561
  • 10 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Participatory Budget of Lisbon
Participatory budgets (PBs) allocate a share of the local public budget to citizen-led initiatives. While aiming to get the most marginalised groups of civil society closer to democratic institutions and representatives, the first PBs were celebrated by movements and parties on the left of the political spectrum for their capacity to foster social justice, transparency, and accountability. In the last few decades, PBs have been endorsed by international agencies and contributed significantly to the development of good governance mechanisms. 
  • 651
  • 30 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Walking Needs and COVID-19
More than 150 cities around the world have expanded emergency cycling and walking infrastructure to increase their resilience in the face of the COVID 19 pandemic. This tendency toward walking has led it to becoming the predominant daily mode of transport that also contributes to significant changes in the relationships between the hierarchy of walking needs and walking behaviour. These changes need to be addressed in order to increase the resilience of walking environments in the face of such a pandemic.
  • 504
  • 26 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Ground Beetle Communities and Urbanization
Urbanization involves the profound alteration of original habitats and causes habitat loss and biodiversity decline. Urban areas and roads in land use mainly have a negative influence on ground beetles. Paddies, fields, parks and green spaces, and open space were positively correlated with species richness of forest species and large-sized species, and open space was positively correlated with species richness and the density of open land species. However, ground beetle communities in different areas of varying sizes did not group separately. These results suggest that changes in paddies, fields, parks and green spaces, forests, and open space associated with the expanding urban area and road greatly influenced species composition, and the community structure remained similar. 
  • 540
  • 10 Jul 2021
Topic Review
VR and Virtual Shopping Stores
A virtual reality (VR) platform generates a computer-simulated environment that is fostered and assisted by the head-mounted display (HMD), which utilizes a manipulator in an immersive environment. VR is broadly used for cognitive purposes in various industries in the fields of engineering, architecture, and medicine. Software makers are also in the perspective of introducing virtual stores where consumers can enter the virtual stores and visualize the dimensions and usability of an item prior to purchasing it. A virtual shopping store is a computer-simulated store where a handler can envisage, feel, and interact with the products and items in the store. Implementation of the virtual store can be a breakthrough in the e-commerce market. Other famous terms for virtual stores are cybernetic stores and computer-simulated 3D spatial stores. In current e-commerce stores, one of the recorded fraudulent activities is the delivery of an ordered item different from that itemized in the e-commerce store. Needless to say, a virtual store can spark a revolution in the e-commerce industry by not only altering the way of shopping but also by making it secure. 
  • 576
  • 02 Jul 2021
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