Defensible Space and Urban Public Environment Design

The significance of urban public environment doesn't consist only in meeting the demands of certain function. The public environment of a city can also be its important part through supporting and stimulating significant urban public behavior. From four main aspects of the theory of defensible space, the authors discussed how to establish good relationship between public environment and public life in the city; meanwhile, the authors provide some proposals and ways to enhance the quality of public environment of a city.     

Spatial Industrial Dynamics in Sweden: Urban Growth Industries

In this paper two basic theories within spatial industrial dynamics—the filtering-down theory and the spatial product cycle theory—are used to explain processes of spatial decentralization and centralization of economic activities. In particular, a case is made for the idea that employment decentralization should be expected not only for growing and maturing manufacturing industries but also for growing and maturing service industries. Based upon this theoretical framework the empirical part of the paper analysis the spatial behavior during the period 1980 to 1993 of the employment in a group of 19 industries in Sweden—the so-called urban growth industries—with an expected high potential for employment decentralization. Most of the industries exhibited the expected pattern of employment decentralization with the larger medium-sized regions as the main winners. A shift-share analysis shows that the overall magnitudes of the competitive shift components are rather small and that, hence, Sweden during the period 1980–1993 did not experience a drastic change in the spatial distribution of its urban growth industries.     

Landscape Construction of Urban Waterfront Environment

Urban waterfront landscape is the most vital landscape form in a city, the most quality urban green line, and also an ideal habitat corridor. Urban waterfront landscape belt has inborn lasting attractiveness for urban citizens. Considering needs of urban development, development and redevelopment of waterfront areas have been initiated in many cities to meet relaxation and leisure needs of citizens. This paper analyzed landscapes of urban riverfront environment, embankment landscape engineering, and waterfront plant cultivation, so as to further explore landscape construction of urban waterfront environment.     

Growth Linkages and Urban Development in Niger

ABSTRACT. It is increasingly recognized that the assumption that the supply of tradable output is perfectly elastic, which underlies many regional economic models (esp. economic base models), does not hold in many developing countries. When the supply of tradable output (primarily agricultural products) and, in many cases, non-tradable output is inelastic, the resulting income multipliers will be substantially reduced. Recent calls for the promotion of market towns and smaller urban centers have not fully considered the impact of supply in elasticities on the capacity of such measures to stimulate broad-based development. This study uses data collected from firms in several market-town systems in Niger to examine the probable consequences. The paper argues that such policies are unlikely to be effective in countries like Niger where the vulnerability of the rural economy has severely limited the elasticity of the supply response, especially for agriculture and nonfarm production by small-scale producers.     

Urban Growth Boundaries and Betterment: Rent‐Seeking by Landowners on Melbourne's Expanding Urban Fringe

Melbourne's Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) was legislated in 2002 and expanded substantially in 2010. Although based on strategic planning goals, UGBs have the capacity to influence land and housing markets. Landowners on the rural–urban fringe are a stakeholder group directly impacted by UGB policy, with multiple interests in containment policies and any land‐value effects. Following the 2010 expansion, substantial windfall profits to “instant millionaire” Melbourne landowners were openly reported. This paper critically interprets claims made by landowners in 264 public submissions responding to the proposed UGB expansion, and to an accompanying new policy instrument, the Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution (GAIC). The GAIC was, in effect, a hypothecated tax on betterment expected to result from the UGB shift. Landowners commonly expressed fears that the UGB shift would not result in claimed value increases. On this basis, the GAIC was revised such that it is—at least in intention—a system wherein the tax is to be paid by housing developers and passed forward to homebuyers. The paper argues that the series of changes to the UGB and GAIC, including the modified “purchaser pays” system, may be understood as a response to rent‐seeking policy pressures from existing landowners as “insiders.” Although the unpopularity of the GAIC with landowners might have been anticipated, the outcome appears to legitimise their misinterpretation of the premise of development gain. A broader implication is that rent‐seeking behaviour by existing property owners can determine whether and how strategic planning policies are implemented.     

城市环境绿化中的生态学原则

城市绿化是城市生态系统的重要组成部分,随着城市污染程度的不断加深,城市绿化在改善城市生态环境和景观上发挥重要的作用。城市绿化应根据城市生态系统的特征与原理来科学绿化,从绿化物种的生活型选择、生态型选择、抗性物种的选择、警惕生物入侵、空间格局构建及季相相宜等各方面进行分析指导城市绿化,并要求对其科学管理,以实现城市可持续绿化的目标。     

Urban Encroachment,Economic Growth,and Land Values in the Urban Fringe

ABSTRACT This paper examines the impact of the local and national economy, and the rate of return on competing assets, on land prices in the urban fringe of the Scattle Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area (PMSA). The data are derived from a set of nearly all land sales in King County Washington between 1969 and 1984. The size of the data set allows for the neutralization of site specific influences by examining the monthly mean price of unimproved land. The results show that, like other traditional investments, land prices are sensitive to factors such as inflation and interest rates. Population pressures and local economic conditions influence urban fringe prices as well. Land further from the urban core is less sensitive to these impacts, presumably because it is too far away from economic activity to be considered for its value in future urban uses.     

Public Policy and Land Conversion: Lessening Urban Growth Pressure in River Corridors

Year in and year out, flooding causes greater dollar losses than any other natural hazard. To cope with that problem, more than 17,000 communities across the US have adopted riverine floodplain management programs to reduce the amount of urban development at risk from flooding and flood-related damage. This article examines the extent to which floodplain management programs influence the investment and predevelopment decisions of owners of vacant floodplain land in ten selected cities. Such public programs are found to alleviate investment and development pressure in flood hazard areas. Community-wide factors such as the availability of non-floodplain buildable land, however, can magnify or depress this effect of public policy on investment activity. Further, landowner perceptions of the flood hazard itself have an important influence on anticipated property appreciation and investment activity.     

柑橘生长与生态因子的关系研究进展

根据柑橘生长与生态因子关系的近期研究成果,本文阐述了柑橘生长与光照、温度、降水、土壤有机质、土壤营养元素、土壤酸碱度、土壤水分、土壤质地及结构、土层厚度、土壤微生物以及地形等生态因子间的关系。由此得出,柑橘类果树的个体发育和系统发育是自身遗传背景与外部生态因子相互作用、相互适应的结果。     

The Planning Response to Urban Service Sector Growth: an International Comparison

The restructuring of urban economies from manufacturing to service industries has been a major feature of the last twenty-five years. Large cities with a population of at least one million have been at the forefront of this change with the primate cities of the newly industrialized countries increasingly affected. The growth characteristics, planning experiences, and policy implications of the expansion of service industries in large and medium-size metropolitan areas around the world are examined. This has illuminated issues connected with the interurban competition for services. The service sector has shaped new urban planning and public policy agendas and the way in which metropolitan areas in this study have started to reshape their policies provides a good lead for others to follow. It is likely that new pressures will strengthen the need to look beyond their established urban planning policies to broader, integrated urban management policies.     

城市森林对周边小气候时空格局的影响

以对城市森林生态效应的动态评价为目的,研究绿地和非绿地之间的物质交换特点与规律,描述和揭示植物群落的生态效应时空格局。试验对森林周边温度和湿度在空间和时间的梯度变化进行测试。结果表明,杨树林对其周边环境有着明显的降温和增湿效应,中午时段绿地生态场效应最高,下午测试时段对周边空气温湿度的影响与常规是逆反的     

Seasonal Characteristics of Thermal Environment in Urban Public Space of the Urban in Hot-summer and Cold-winter Region

Thermal environment in urban public space is considered as an important factor affecting thermal comfort of human beings. In the whole year, thermal environment in public space of the city in hot-summer and cold-winter zone changes dramatically, which has an effect on human thermal comfort. In this study, three typical public spaces including street, park and square of Changsha were selected for a long-term experiment of thermal environment. Based on the analysis of four significant thermal environment parameters-air temperature, relative humidity, global temperature and wind speed, seasonal characteristics of thermal environment in urban public space were obtained. The results show that the characteristics of urban thermal environment are determined by natural climate, while the physical structure of a city has essential impact on the changes of local outdoor thermal environment. Affected by plants (trees) and water (Xiangjiang river) air temperature of the street along the street is much lower, relative humidity is higher and solar radiation is weaker in most of the year. Compared to the street along the river, air temperature of the square is higher and solar radiation is stronger.