Subject:
All Disciplines Arts & Humanities Biology & Life Sciences Business & Economics Chemistry & Materials Science Computer Science & Mathematics Engineering Environmental & Earth Sciences Medicine & Pharmacology Physical Sciences Public Health & Healthcare Social Sciences
Sort:
Hottest Latest Alphabetical (A-Z) Alphabetical (Z-A)
Type:
All Topic Review Biography
Topic Review
Spread of Viruses on Universities Campuses
Outdoor open spaces are important for sustainable universities because they accommodate outdoor activities and enhance the campus’s livability and vitality. The character of the outdoor space determines the quality of the campus.
  • 483
  • 07 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Sustainability in City-Regionalism
Sustainability concerns transgress jurisdictional boundaries compelling multi-scalar and inter-jurisdictional responses. The city-region is one of the scales at which governance actors may mobilise for sustainability and this is now recognised in literatures on integrated food systems, for example. However, within the mainstream debates on city-regions, sustainability as a motivation for inter-jurisdictional governance is still given scant attention. In practice also the connections between city-regionalism and sustainability are often limited and fractious. However, there are emergent practices which offer the potential for a stronger relationship, especially where there are growing pressures for addressing environmental threats and spillovers at the regional scale. 
  • 421
  • 10 May 2021
Topic Review
Sustainable Coastal Design
Mediterranean coastal cities are mostly urban environments with a long history, hence the idea that the different aspects that form the identity and perception of the cities can be interconnected in a framework that can be useful for further understanding and improvement. There is a need to consider multiple scales, national boundaries, the intersection of land and water and different stakeholders, policies and sectors. The coastal zone is an interface between land and sea, composed of a continuum of coastal land, intertidal areas, aquatic systems including the network of rivers and estuaries, islands, transitional and intertidal areas, salt marshes, wetlands and beaches. Natural coastal systems and areas where human activities involve the use of coastal resources may, therefore, extend well beyond the limit of territorial waters, and several kilometers inland.
  • 376
  • 29 Jun 2023
Topic Review
The Conflict Between Humans and Urban Coyotes
Coyotes live in most major cities across North and Central America. As their habitat shrinks, human–coyote interactions increase, spurring debate about how to respond. Residents often fear coyotes and want extermination, but scientists argue they are a permanent fixture that play a vital ecosystem role and that eradicating them does not work and has negative impacts. Instead, ecologists argue that residents need to change their behavior to coexist with coyotes. Human–coyote sightings and interactions are becoming more frequent in urban areas across North and Central America. While many species have lost territory, the coyote range has expanded. Relatively recently, ecologists have coalesced around the idea that coexistence is the most promising avenue to reduce human–coyote conflict in urban areas. Despite this, calls for the eradication of coyotes continue. 
  • 326
  • 18 Oct 2023
Topic Review Video
The Image of the Smart City
The image of the city was first introduced by Kevin Lynch in 1960, and referred to the ways in which urban space is perceived by their users, and how these acts are based on mental maps, whose elements can be put into well-defined categories: paths, nodes, edges, districts, and landmarks.
  • 856
  • 16 Feb 2022
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
The Lost Shantytowns of Barcelona
Shantytowns still existed in many of Southern Europe’s major cities in the second half of the 20th century, although many have now been demolished. The purpose of this article is to highlight the history and evolution of some of the main shantytowns that remained in Barcelona in the mid-1970s, track their subsequent demolition, and reflect on the fate of the shanty dwellers. This form of self-build housing, usually lacking in basic services, played a vital role in providing shelter for immigrant families and the urban poor. A strong neighbourhood identity existed in many of these shantytowns, and national and local policies that aimed at their demolition and the re-housing of residents, often in low-quality housing blocks, proved problematic. The shantytowns studied here are La Perona, the Tres Turons, Campo de la Bota, and Ramon Casellas, which together comprised over 2000 shanty dwellings in the 1970s. Drawing on photographs taken at the time and existing literature, and using recent images from Google Earth, the demise of these shantytowns is examined, and the policies and plans that determined their fate are discussed. This article finds that the shanty dwellers experienced mixed fortunes, some being forcibly removed and re-housed in tower blocks with associated social-economic problems, whilst others played an active part in the design of replacement housing, implemented in situ where the shanty dwellings once existed. This article contributes to existing studies on shantytowns in Barcelona, which received scant attention from academics at the time, and which only now are being recognised as an important aspect of Barcelona’s urban history.
  • 386
  • 08 Mar 2024
Topic Review
The New Urban Profession: Entering Age of Uncertainty
The context of urbanism is changing rapidly. The context for working in the field of urban design and planning is influenced by the pace of change; uncertainty; and massive transitions. The urban professional, however, is still used to planning for small changes and repeating traditional approaches. 
  • 606
  • 11 Feb 2022
Topic Review
The Pandemic City
Pandemics have shaped the way cities are planned and configured. Throughout history, cities have evolved to solve problems of sanitation, hygiene, and health access while providing space and opportunities for the urban dwellers.
  • 693
  • 30 Mar 2021
Topic Review
The Politics of Hard/Soft Dichotomies
Hard and soft approaches to smart cities have been contributed to the compartmentalization of the smart city concept itself. The binary of the hard (technocratic) and soft (societal) is also often presented as a choice of pathways in the development of smart cities. This conceptualization has developed, however, with the original technocratic focus now increasingly reframed as “citizen-centric.”
  • 377
  • 17 Oct 2022
Topic Review
The Role of Urban Green Infrastructure
The urban green infrastructure (UGI) is “an interconnected network of urban green spaces, including multiple types of natural or man-made systems, ranging from large-scale water or terrestrial ecosystems to small-scale pocket parks or green components, such as green walls in cities”. It provides ecosystems services that are highly important for human well-being in cities.
  • 705
  • 28 Feb 2022
  • Page
  • of
  • 12
Featured Entry Collections
>>

Featured Books

>>
Encyclopedia of Social Sciences
Encyclopedia of COVID-19
Encyclopedia of Fungi
Encyclopedia of Digital Society, Industry 5.0 and Smart City
Video Production Service
Feedback