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The ambiguity of cycling and urban design
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The term “urban design” has been a source of ambiguity among researchers focusing on cycling for a few decades now. Although commonly alluded to, urban design often lacks a precise definition in relation to cycling, and when used to describe cycling, is often referred to in conjunction with other ideas, such as planning, transport, and land-use. For example, a Google Scholar search for the term “urban design cycling” lists a mix of various sources, including literature like “Environmental Correlates of Walking and Cycling: Findings from the transportation, urban design, and planning literatures” (Saelens et al., 2003), which provides an overview of transportation literature and little to none on urban design. This is reflects the general state of cycling research, and Krizek et al. (2011) attests that that cycling has been viewed primarily in functional terms in relation to urban design, and that comparatively less research has been done on the aesthetic and experiential aspects of cycling. They also articulate the gap between the urban designer’s social and experiential focus on the pedestrian realm, such as sidewalks and plazas, and the traffic engineer’s operational focus of flow and speed in the motor vehicle realm of highways and intersections (Forsyth and Krizek, 2011; Hamilton-Baillie, 2004). However, this raises questions on the ambiguous role of urban design within the domain of cycling, and how urban design methods and processes can be used to address problems related to cycling and space. Furthermore, it must be understood why these problems fall specifically within the realm of the urban design discipline, as opposed to the expertise of urban planners, traffic engineers, or many of the other disciplines that also engage with cycling. In particular, this paper investigates the role and opportunity for urban design to expand the qualitative approach for framing the relationship between cycling, mobility, and space. Working on the assumption that the domain of cycling can benefit from a comprehensive overview of the various fields of literature it draws from, including urban planning, transport, mobilities, and public health, this paper is a critical evaluation of existing literatures and the role urban design can play here.Published versio
Connecting food with planning profession: a review paper on the development and evolution of urban food planning, education and research
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The food system has been noticed by planning profession since the World Health Organization launched the Healthy Cities movement in the1980s. As the result, countries gradually started to focus on the health, agricultural and urban food security issue and make efforts to create healthier and more liveable cities ever since. Food system has been regarded as production and consumption of food in general and could be divided into the policy and planning dimensions. Food policies are about agriculture, economic development, logistics and education can cooperate with each other in policy actions or how non-governmental organisations, farmers and other different stakeholders can work with the government. The spatial planning of urban food is related to how we can improve the access for people to get the healthy food and how to implement the sustainable urban food planning. In addition, urban design concerning the application of productive landscape and other tools are also parts of spatial interventions to urban agriculture and food city. Although food planning has gradually been discussed in recent years, there has been a lack of systematic review about this planning trend. In this paper, we reviewed the literature related to the subject of urban food planning since 1980. Through analysing articles in planning related journals, we created the literature maps and descriptive statistics that document the current development of food planning literature and organise them by the definition, themes, history, typology, evolution and future direction of food in connection with the planning research, practice and education. We wish to contribute to this emerging planning and design paradigm that concerning about food, public health, sustainability and the new rural-urban relationship.Published versio
Multi-sensory approach to health-supportive and ageing-friendly high-density urban environments
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Design and planning actions to improve urban health and well-being are well-recognised as some of the key drivers and indicators of sustainable, inclusive and resilient urban and community development worldwide. Yet, due to rapid growth and transformation, increased densification, hybridisation and intensification, our cities continue to generate problems, stress, harsh conditions and inequality, instead of becoming healing, empathetic, inclusive and safe environments for all. Our understanding and experience of the built environment are primarily built around multi-sensory, emotional and symbolic modes of exchange with space (Merleau-Ponty, 1962; Pallasmaa, 1996; Pérez-Gómez, 2006). Active multi‐sensory and emotional dialogue with all environmental stimuli, including positive distractions, textures, materials, colours, signage, culture-specific clues, way-finding and overall aesthetic atmosphere, profoundly shape our understanding of the built environment and are vital for physical, psychological and social well-being of all ages. However, while architecture has immense potentials to engage the immediacy of people’s experiences more effectively than other art forms (Holl et al., 2006), our contemporary cities are more than often either sensory overwhelming or sensory depleting, which results in physical, mental and emotional stress. Stress is the major cause of diseases, pandemic depression and death in the developed world (WHO, 2002), with more than 50% of deaths worldwide stemming from chronic non-communicable diseases that are instigated by the continuous exposure to numerous and intense stress conditions of contemporary cities (OxHA, 2008).Published versio
Mapping informality: the case of street food in Thewet, Bangkok
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Street vending are the most primitive form of informal trade which nowadays, continuously playsthe important role in economic and social capital in many countries, especially in the developing world. Street vendingoffers the easy access to get cheap food and commodity as well as job opportunity with low investment. Moreover, street vending vibrates public space and activate urban livelihood through the exchange and trading. Bangkok is a prime case where street vending play considerable role in many dimensions. According to the previous study on the emergent role of Bangkok street vending in response to the changing urban context due to socio-economic change, technological change, and climate change resulting more frequent and severe urban flood disaster (Sereerat, 2013). The study revealed the informality of street vending is the mechanismdriven by 3 performances: flexibility, mobility, and resilience, in providing access to food and necessity to citizen both in everyday life as well as during crises. Street vendors as a result is a resilient urban element that can meet inclusively the basic needs of all citizen. In social aspect, street vendor’s informality and inclusiveness also maintain vitality during critical condition through the reciprocal help. This finding could be apply to the more resilient urban design and planning for the future urban Asia. While the importance of street vending and its potentials is increasingly widely acknowledged through, development studies, socio-economic studies, architecture, planning, urban design and urban studies, there is considerable disparity on how they should be defined and approached as elements in urban study. As the informality of street vending also have negatively driven both socio-economic and environmental problems such as the chaotic growth, out of law, traffic congestion, dirt, pollution, privatization of public space, image of poverty. Street vendor are considered as an unwanted urban element for Bangkok public sector policy makers, urban designer as well as a part of citizen. Under the supervision of the Bangkok Municipal Administration (MBA). Bangkok is one city trying to fix chronic problems due to the street vending activities for several decades in order to modernization and beatification the city. Which has used several measures such as formalization through licensing, clearance, allocation to new arable, space management, and latest measure was the clearance without correctly public participation process. However, the results in many such cases street vending area in Siam Square, Silom, or Bobea were not successful as expected. Or in some cases the clearance and allocation had done successful only in a short period and not standing still. As can be seen from the return to vending space. Moreover, illegal street vendors are still increase dramatically. The study shows top down management, use of force to suppress or forced allocation without public partition process of understanding together to find solutions together to reflect on the context and the needs of the public, including households with street vendors. The Participatory planning is a tool that has been widely accepted and used in the planning of the development and widespread. Because the process of discussion is important in helping to coordinate incompatibilities, conflicts and work together to find solutions that lead to a common agreement among the stakeholders (government, private and public), however, bringing the discussion to organize street vendors cannot be applied directly. Due to the characteristics of street vendors in Bangkok by a trade system that is linked to the informal network of other related benefits, both directly and indirectly. The structure of the stakeholders are complex and difficult to get cooperation to reveal his identity to contribute to discussions.Published versio
Assessing the quality of neighborhood public spaces, a case study of Misurata city, Libya
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The public space of the city neighbourhoods is one of the major indicators of the urban quality and the residents´ satisfaction (Carmona, 2010, Carr, 1992, and Gehl, 2013). In Libya, the government has adopted a redevelopment scheme of providing new homes to the local residents, to build thousands of new housing units around the country since 2005. This plan was aiming to offset the shortage in housing numbers due to the high growth of population and rapid urbanization (Worldometers.info), 79% of the country population live in urban areas (Salhin, 2011). This high demand of providing houses to the citizens all over the country has made a significant change of the urban planning composition of the country, especially the residential areas. This paper focuses on two samples of a typical neighbourhoods in Misurata city as case studies. It investigates the role of public spaces of the traditional neighbourhoods (TN) and governmental neighbourhoods (GN). It compares the conditions of public spaces in both types of neighbourhoods in terms of physical and intangible qualities and examines the relationship between the residents in terms of social integration and community cohesion in both types of neighbourhoods. In addition, it attempts to find out whether this new strategy has affected the social relationship of the local community or not and finding out the extent of possible impact on the daily activities. Furthermore, the paper discusses the extent of interaction among the residents regardless of their age, gender and cultural background. This research is based on mixed methods approach including qualitative and quantitative methods through case studies of two neighbourhoods in Misurata City, Libya. 158 Questionnaires were distributed to an adequate sample of the neighbourhoods´ population. The indepth interviews conducted that included three categories, a) residents b) decision makers c) professionals. Moreover, according to the possibility of limitations in the data collection stage, site observation was used to focus on the residents´ activities as a supporting tool. The results show that residents in TNs feel more attached to their community, socially satisfied and comfortable while this perception was lower in the GNs. Research also found out that the relationship between the residents of the neighbourhood plays an essential role to improve and promote the social satisfaction of the residents which therefore will contribute to high-quality communities. Hence, it assists the development of the urban quality in significant parts of the city.Published versio
The role of arts festivals in the Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai: bridging gaps in the French Belgian cross-border metropolis
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The 21th century is when the globalisation of capital has found, as of now, its pinnacle. According to Sassen (2007), this phenomenon has been responsible for the destabilisation of past scale hierarchies, previously almost totally centred at the national level, depicted by the nation state figure. The proliferation of multinational capitalist organisations with their structures based on a network of branches spread across the globe with its strategic functions concentrated in a unique place (or in just a few of them) contribute to the complexity of the world’s multiscale configuration. This dynamic that involves the global capital puts under scrutiny the autonomy and centrality of the national sphere. Hence, other forms of spatial scales may rise to a more prominent role, such as the subnational (i.e. cities; regions), cross-border regions that include two or more subnational units, and supranational entities, like global electronic markets and free trade zones (Sassen, 2007). That is the case of Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai – ELKT (founded in 2008), which spans across the French-Belgian border and have been introduced in the global capital market through regional level politics, in a logic that is concomitantly transnational and subnational. To overturn the economic fortunes of a deprived region, this Eurometropolis seeks to benefit from an extremely strategic position in Europe’s geography to put itself in the spotlight for the big international private capital and investments. Thus, ELKT’s transnational governing committee has decided to make use of territorial marketing tools to promote the cross-border metropolis, investing in big cultural events and the subsequent reinvention of the region’s image: from an underprivileged and charmless former industrial site into a new cultural bustling hub, open to creative and fresh talents. The idea behind such course of action is that the region must portray an attractive image for the foreign investors amid a ‘locational war’, boosted by the new hierarchy of scales, against other subnational and transnational entities.Published versio
The right to the city for refugees amid a European crisis: an exploratory perspective
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017My presentation for the AESOP annual congress falls within the scope of a wider exploratory approach embraced at the launching of the post-doctoral research project INSEHRE 21, focusing on the process of socio-spatial and housing inclusion of African and Middle Eastern refugees and asylum seekers in contemporary Europe, with reference to the reception of Portuguese-speaking African communities in Portugal, from 1975 until today, i.e., after the liberation of most of its former colonies. The aim of this presentation is twofold: to introduce some theoretical authors selected for structuring the INSEHRE 21 investigation; and to confront the key concept of inclusion with the European possibility of constructing responses directed (or not) to the access of these needy immigrants to the Right to the City (Lefebvre, [1968] 2009), both purposes with reference to the current neoliberal crisis in the Western countries, particularly in Europe. This presentation is organised into three interconnected parts, the first one concerning the the oretical methodological structuring notion of inclusion starting from the thoughts of four important scholars, such as Michel Foucault, Slavoj Žižek, Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey, seeking to identify the broader meaning of belonging, and its paradoxical significances, and of “spaces of inclusion”, namely its materialisation. The second part refers to the project INSEHRE 21 itself, its principal objectives, description (theme, object of study, questions, methodology and structure) and state of the art, addressing social (self-) production and official production of housing (and urban) space in Portugal and other European countries. The third part discusses the theoretical premises of the project in light of its principal intentions aiming to frame spatial (and intersectoral) inclusion processes in future reflections and to identify new avenues of theoretical and empirical research.Published versio
Spatial planning policies and the integration models as a mean for a better delivery of services of general interest
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The provision of services of general interest (SGI) is a competence of authorities at different governance levels. Until now, public administrations and the service providers, tend to have a strictly sectorial approach to the SGI delivery, leading to incomprehensive, isolated solutions. This causes a mismatch between the people’s needs and the services provision. Furthermore, it contradicts the EU efforts for a territorial and social cohesion. Additionally, in the times of austerity, the public funds limitation especially affects the remote mountain territories and border areas. Harsh (local) economic conditions (fewer jobs), population ageing, dispersed settlement, and the geomorphology hinder the provision and supply of the SGI in these territories. To overcome this deficiency, new approaches of the SGI provision should be sought and identified. Therefore, hereby spatial planning and sectorial policies and the related models of integration (sectors, actors, funds, services, policies etc.) are investigated. The paper builds on the research done in the transnational project INTESI (Integrated Territorial Strategies for Services of General Interest). The analysis of the coverage of SGI in the spatial planning, and other (space related) sectoral policies documents (regulations, strategies, plans, guidelines, etc.) was done in five Alpine countries (Italy, Switzerland, Austria, France, and Slovenia). The aim was to find out if the integration of the policies (or measures) for the SGI provision is already present in these documents, to what extent, and what the problems that need to be addressed are. In addition to the seven sectors (regional development, transport, telecommunication, basic goods, health care, social care, and education), relevant “umbrella” regulations (e.g. the constitutions, state laws on delivery of SGI, etc.) have been inspected for each country. The integration models and their elements have been investigated considering the authorities, administrative levels, actors, funds, etc. Altogether, 257 documents have been reviewed. The analysis revealed the level of integration in the Alpine Space is moderate. The integrated solutions mostly occur between the following sectors: health and telecommunication, health and social care, and basic goods and telecommunication (e.g. post offices in grocery shops). The analysis also showed that to some extent countries secure the SGI by the same means, according to the EU common marker regulations. However, looking into more details, there are differences among them. For example, in comparison to the other Alpine countries, the SGI provision in Switzerland is, in terms of the time and distance accessibility, very strictly and in detail regulated. In relation to the identified gaps, the study reveals these could be solved by adapting the existing spatial (national, regional) strategies and plans, as some of the examined documents (e.g. transport and telecommunication policies) do not even address the SGI provision as a topic of spatial planning. To enable a better SGI supply and delivery, the implementation of the integration models should urgently be considered to link the following sectors and services: (public) transport with all the other inspected sectors, and the telecommunication with the health/social care, basic goods and education.Published versio
The street food market, to be or not to be? A study of different groups´ interest dialog behind informal urban space
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Street food market was the major business form in Shanghai, in which food, vegetables and fruits are sold. But by the end of twentieth Century, after the government management is centralized and moved indoors, the street market within urban area mostly disappeared. But before long, street food markets of all sizes came into being again, creating a typical irregular space in Shanghai. Especially in the bustling city center, there are still many street food markets despite of the prohibition. This phenomenon is attracting more and more attention from media and public. Why can the street market exist in a contradictory status messy, traffic impacting but full of vitality and natural livelihood? Why is the street market loved by some on one hand, and is despised by others simultaneously on the other hand? Whether the government should extinct the street market or let it be? This paper selects Taiwan Road food market, located in the East Nanjing Road Commercial District in the city center, as an example, focusing on the interests of the game behind the street food market. First, the market’s physical space is surveyed, and the interrelationship among the location background and surrounding facilities is sorted out; secondly, the social association inside the market is emphasized and analyzed. Through interviews with the four types of people related to the market from interest aspect----customers, vegetable vendors, residents and management, the links between these people and the street market is analyzed. Furthermore, their attitude towards the market and its consequence is analyzed as well, to deduct the source reason for why the street market never extinct. Through combing the benefit gaming between these four types of people, the necessity and positive influence of urban irregular space represented by street market is pointed out. Meanwhile, facing the negative urban influence brought by the street market, suggestions are made for the future development of the city street food market.Published versio
The right path to health: the walkability of a European medium sized city called Guimaraes
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The relationship between the act of walking and city space has been over the years object of numerous approaches both by academics and researchers. Nowadays there is an increase in empirical research, above all from areas such as public health, urban planning and transportation, that results from the application of measurement instruments both of the built environment (BE) and of walking, understood here as a form of physical activity (PA) with recognised benefits for health. The exploration of the BE-PA relationship is based on validated instruments that seek to clarify this equation. Developed in countries like USA, Canada or Australia these are less common in the European context. This paper intends to demonstrate that the combined use of information resulting from spatial audits and population surveys are important tools in the planning of proximity of medium sized cities like the case study, Guimarães, thus incorporating the human dimension in the planning process as advocated by Jan Gehl. The measurement instruments developed in recent years are diversified, containing objective and subjective measures. This research was based on the following BE audit tools: the Systematic Pedestrian and Cycling Environmental Scan; the Analytic Audit Tool; the Irvine-Minnesota Inventory; the Measurement Instrument for Urban Design Qualities; the Pedestrian Environment Data Scan; and the Microscale Audit of Pedestrian Streetscapes; incorporating too, the urban elements referred by Gehl. Despite the study aim focus on the development and confirmation of objective measures, two subjective tools were observed: the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale because is the most used internationally; and the Assessing Levels of Physical Activity for being that developed for the evaluation of environments for PA in Europe. In these studies, PA is usually measured using internationally validated questionnaires, such as the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). Thus, after identifying the city areas according to their degree of walkability, assessment tools of the variables to be explored were applied. So, a new audit tool was developed having as reference the above mentioned ones, Gehl theories, and the urban context found. With regards the inhabitants survey, PA evaluation questions were based on IPAQ, being reformulated to better understanding by respondents. Given the relatively small scale of the city of Guimarães respondents were asked to indicate on a map appended to the survey the routes they made to six utilitarian destinations and six leisure destinations in order to assess both transportation and leisure walking. The routes made by the subjects were mapped and correct destinations identified, being that, their features were evaluated according to the items of the developed audit tool. The assessments were made using CAD surveys, orthophotomaps, Google Street View and by direct observation through site visits. The developed audit tool presents itself as an instrument that can be easily replicated in similar contexts. Data collected allow the analysis of the correlation between spatial variables, reported walking levels and health indicators, thus identifying the elements that have the greatest relevance in this equation.Published versio