Smart growth strategies,transportation and urban sprawl: simulated futures for Hamilton,Ontario

North American cities have undergone dramatic changes over the last century. Locations that were once inconvenient have become accessible through extensive road networks leading to population decentralization from the traditional urban centre to suburbia, creating polycentric sprawls from once monocentric communities. Hamilton, Ontario is one such city. The decentralization and urban decline of the city is widely attributed to sprawling development. This change in the sociospatial structure creates challenges for transportation planners as we see greater automobile dependency, greater commuting distances and increased congestion. Smart growth policies such as urban residential intensification (URI) aim to increase population densities in the urban core. This exploratory study estimates the benefits of such policies from a transportation aspect. It is predicted that the City of Hamilton will experience household growth of approximately 80,000 households over the period 2005–2031. Using IMULATE, an integrated urban transportation and land‐use model, a variety of development scenarios model this anticipated growth. Changes in vehicular emissions, traffic congestion and energy consumption as a result of URI are examined. Models of the land‐use/transportation relationship demonstrate how increasing population densities within a city's urban centre drastically reduce congestion, emissions and gasoline consumption.     

Conceptual and practical issues in the detection of local disease clusters: a study of mortality in Hamilton, Ontario

Recent advances in local spatial statistics and operational computing capacity have led to growing interest in the detection of disease clusters for public health surveillance and for improving understanding of disease pathogenesis. Although conceptual reviews and applied examples have appeared in the literature, few studies have addressed the connection between conceptual and practical issues that confront researchers interested in using local statistics to detect disease clusters. Here we review recent literature on the use of local statistics for cluster assessment and focus on the practical issue of assigning correct geographic coordinates. The process of assigning geographic coordinates to an address or postal code, known as ‘geocoding’, is a necessary step in conducting smallarea health analyses. With a study of mortality data from Hamilton, Ontario, we illustrate inaccuracies that may be encountered when using Statistics Canada postal code conversion files. Using the Moran's I and Getis‐Ord Gi and Gi* local spatial statistics to identify significant mortality clusters or ‘hot spots’, we demonstrate that small geocoding errors, even those that affect less than one percent of a total dataset, can have a discernible impact on analytic results. To assist other researchers, we supply guidelines to minimize error introduced by geocoding. These results emphasize the importance of accurate geocoding in local health analyses. Les avancées récentes en statistiques spatiales localisées et en capacité informatique opérationnelle ont conduit à un intérêt croissant dans la détection de foyers de maladies pour fins de surveillance de santé publique, et dans l'approfondissement de la compréhension de leur pathogénèse. Bien que des revues conceptuelles et des exemples concrets aient été publiés dans la littérature, peu d'études ont adressé le lien entre les problèmes conceptuels et pratiques auxquels sont confrontés les chercheurs intéressés à utiliser les statistiques locales pour détecter les foyers de maladies. Nous revoyons ici la littérature récente sur l'utilisation de statistiques locales dans l'évaluation de foyers et focalisons sur le problème pratique d'assigner des coordonnées géographiques correctes. Le procédé d'assigner des coordonnées géographiques à une adresse ou à un code postal, nommé‘géocodage’, est une étape nécessaire dans la conduite d'analyses de santéà petite échelle. À l'aide d'une étude sur des données de mortalitéà Hamilton, en Ontario, nous illustrons que des inexactitudes peuvent être rencontrées lorsque les fichiers de codes postaux et de conversion de Statistique Canada sont utilisés. En utilisant les statistiques spatiales localisées I de Moran, Gi and Gi* de Getis et Ord pour identifier des foyers de mortalité significatifs ou des ‘points chauds’, nous démontrons que de petites erreurs de géocodage, même celles n'affectant moins qu'un pour cent de la base de données, peuvent avoir un impact discernable sur les résultats analytiques. Afin d'aider d'autres chercheurs, nous fournissons des recommandations pour minimiser les erreurs introduites par le géocodage. Ces résultats soulignent l'importance d'un géocodage exact dans les analyses de santé locale.     

Evaluation of the spatial and economic effectiveness of industrial land policies in northwest Europe

This article stems from the discrepancy between the lack of attention paid to industrial land policy by academics and the predominant thought among elected representatives and development agencies, i.e. that industrial land policy plays a key role in the creation of growth and new jobs. The article begins with a reflection on the literature, which stresses the need to develop knowledge on industrial land policies. To help fill this research gap, we have developed an exploratory piece of research on the theme of their ‘spatial’ and ‘economic effectiveness’, on the basis of statistical analyses dedicated to seven countries. As regards ‘spatial effectiveness’, the results underline significant national differentials in terms of land consumption on the one hand, while highlighting the economic sprawl that affects France and Belgium on the other hand. As regards ‘economic effectiveness’, our results show that the impact of the development of economic estates on growth depends largely on regional contexts. In particular, the ‘intermediate regions’ in western Germany stand out as belonging to a specific context where land policies seem particularly effective from an economic standpoint. By contrast, the ‘economic effectiveness’ of industrial land policies requires readjustments in the Netherlands as well as in most ‘predominantly rural regions, close to a city’.     

Prefiguring a future city: urban growth,spatial planning and the economic local context in Catalonia

This study undertook a quantitative analysis of town master plans to define future urban growth. Spatial direction and intensity of urban expansion were analysed in relation to local contexts using land zoning and a comprehensive database of socio-economic indicators at the municipal scale in Catalonia, Spain. Our results illustrate a progressive shift towards discontinuous settlements consolidating urban centres in most accessible rural areas. Contrary to what was hypothesized (and partly observed) in recent decades, settlement expansion will modestly contribute to a balanced urban spatial structure. Future urban development in Catalonia will not follow a polycentric model, fuelling instead the growth of medium and small urban centres. This process may consolidate the incipient divide in rural areas with high accessibility and a dynamic economic base with remote inland areas experiencing land abandonment and depopulation. The use of indicators derived from town master plans in the assessment of (scattered or polycentric) future urbanization in Europe is finally discussed.     

Study of the Impact of Urban Development on Surface Temperature Using Remote Sensing in Ho Chi Minh City,Southern Vietnam

Rapid urbanisation and industrialisation have resulted in sharp land cover changes. Urban change not only impacts on land cover but also on urban climate. Land surface and atmospheric modifications due to urbanisation generally lead to a modified thermal climate that is warmer than the surrounding, non-urbanised areas. In this research remote sensing technology was used to evaluate urban growth patterns and its thermal characteristics through mapping impervious surfaces and evaluating thermal infrared images. The case study was carried out in the northern part of Ho Chi Minh City, which has experienced accelerated urban development since the late 1980s. Landsat and Aster images were used to calculate variations in urban impervious surfaces from 1989 to 2006. Thermal bands were processed to obtain radiant surface temperatures for investigating the urban heat island effect associated with increasing impervious surfaces, both spatially and temporally. Impacts of urban development on surface temperature were shown by investigating the surface urban heat island effect intensity. The results show that the built-up area in the northern part of Ho Chi Minh City expanded by 6.5 times between 1989 and 2006. Urban development has altered the magnitude and pattern of the surface urban heat island, with the highest land surface temperature cores found in the industrial (greater than 45^oC) and urban areas (within 36^oC and 40^oC). In suburban and rural areas, where agricultural land still remains with full vegetation cover, the land surface temperature is usually lower. Using remote sensing, the impervious surface was extracted with overall accuracy and a Kappa coefficient for all three years greater than 96%, and the retrieved land surface temperatures with variations from in-situ measurements of less than 2^oC. The results presented here indicate that remote sensing can help to spatially monitor urban development and land surface temperature changes over the whole area and over a long period of time.     

Rural settlement and economic development in Southern Italy: Troia and its contado, c.1020 - c.1230

The history of urban life in Southern Italy during the eleventh and twelfth centuries was particularly disjointed. At varying points many of the regions' cities were subject to the domination of petty Lombard princes, Byzantine emperors, Norman dukes and, as one passes into the twelfth century, Sicilian kings and German emperors. This paper uses the case of the northern Apulian city of Troia to show that, below this surface of political discontinuity, it is possible to discern a different understanding of an urban history. In highlighting the significance of the economic development of Troia's surrounding territory and the manner in which this created a damaging rivalry with the neighbouring settlement of Foggia, this essay emphasises the need to take into account local (and not only wider-ranging political) influences on the shaping of medieval south Italian urban life. In this context the paper also considers the importance of the development of a stable local government and a burgeoning civic conscience at Troia.     

“平均地权”本义的由来与演变——孙中山“民生主义”再研究之二

"平均地权"是孙中山"民生主义"的内容之一.其最初理路是土地国有与耕者有其田.后来演变为核定地价、涨价归公,再变为定价收买,并重申耕者有其田的主张.其目的是要使农民成为具有独立经济地位和独立人格的自耕农,随着农村经济的发展,形成农村中的中产阶级.     

Land use change in Northeast China in the twentieth century: a note on sources,methods and patterns

Studies of historical change in cultivated land use in Northeast China have become important in the discussion of food supply safety and the reconstruction of land use/cover changes in China. This paper subjects a number of sources relating to land use change in the three provinces of Northeast China to comparative analysis. The data examined include Russian survey data (1914), data from local and regional Chinese governments during the Republic of China (1931), data from the Japanese Society of Manchuria Railway (SMR) for 1940 and various sets of contemporary Chinese data for the second half of the 20th century. A unified method of reconstructing the data and estimating the rate of cultivated land use change in Northeast China during the 20th century is developed here. A relational model is proposed for this purpose. It establishes a general framework for relating the various sets of data generated in different time periods and indicates ways in which the data have to be calibrated to ensure their comparability. The calibration of the data involves correlation and regression analysis. The results of the comparative analysis show that the area of and rate of change in cultivated land use in Northeast China increased until the last decade of the twentieth century. Increase rates were particularly high between 1914–1931 and 1950–1960.     

Middle-class childhood and parenting culture in high-rise Hong Kong: on scheduled lives,the school trap and a new urban idyll

This exploratory study seeks to understand childhood in Hong Kong in relation to the high-rise living environment and dominant parenting culture among middle-class professionals. The empirical results suggest that it is parenting culture rather than the built environment that creates children's busy, scheduled lives, high levels of adult supervision and limited outdoor play. Building on a strong portfolio is considered to be both necessary to enter the popular British educational system and to counterbalance a curriculum that is supposed to offer less structured learning compared to the local Cantonese schools. It is argued that this paradoxical situation must be understood in the context of parents' personal childhood histories and the highly competitive global labour market in Hong Kong. The paper ends with a reflection on new discourses of childhood that creates cities and its many consumption spaces as urban idylls for raising children.     

What goes in does not always come out: The impact of the ruminant digestive system of sheep on plant material,and its importance for the interpretation of dung-derived archaeobotanical assemblages

Abstract

On archaeological sites where livestock dung was a major fuel source, plant material that survives digestion intact may well be preserved in the remnants of dung-fuelled fires. Preserved plant remains which were derived from dung relate to the diet of animals, and thus provide a way of investigating the agro-pastoral economies of the past. In order to improve our understanding of the taphonomic processes to which plant material is exposed to during digestion, we applied archaeobotanical methods to the analysis of dung from sheep fed a known diet of cereal and wild plant material. Two clear patterns emerge from these investigations. First, cereal material (grain or chaff) survives digestion poorly and was rarely found in the dung analysed. Second, large proportions of seeds of various wild species survive digestion in an identifiable form, probably due to their small size and/or protective coating. These findings are crucial for reliable interpretation of dung-derived plant material in archaeological settings.